Inherited Portfolio
Posted: October 25th, 2018, 3:26 pm
My dad was a keen investor and died suddenly a year ago, whilst ill he saw financial advisors looking to take over his investments for my mum and baulked at the cost saying "maillion can do it its easy". However he never got the chance to teach me. I have never had money to invest of my own until he left me circa £40k from some kind of insurance product and his car. Has been sitting in my current account.
He has left mum with circa £250k total in a variety of investment trusts, £7k in funds like Lindsell Train, and some cash. All contained in ISAs.
On his death I arranged via APS with the platforms for the investments to be exactly replicated in my mothers name. I know this could have been a chance to rebalance, change platform, reinvest elsewhere but there was simply not time to learn about this world and I figured he picked good investments so why not carry on for the time being and not miss out on continued growth over the time it takes me to learn what to do.
Mum (late 60s, retired) owns family home and is fortunate to have a great final salary pension and so says she does not need to take any income from investments. She is very risk averse but by the same token thinks she does not need this money for her income so growth would really be for her beneficiaries. Obviously needs change and she may need money for care, or even to secure that dream bungalow at short notice without needing to wait on selling her house. She doesn't like the idea of us paying inheritance tax but unless the limits don't keep pace with inflation I don't think she will be affected.
I think its pertinent to:
1) Work out what to do with my £40k (i would use mine and my wife's ISA allowances) and a monthly investment of circa £400 each.
2) Work out the risk level in mum's portfolio - and remove any high risk investments that I am not capable of managing yet / don't match her risk profile - but do this at the right time!
Questions:
A) For me I was looking at Lifestrategy 80, but found dad had setup similar for my sister with WITAN via cavendish fidelity- this seems to have outperformed lifestrategy 100, but has a £1.50 each month dealing fee. I'm late 30's, I have inertia in pressing the button to move such a large amount of money, I want it to be the right move! WItan or lifestrategy 80 or something else for my investment? I fully intend to get "active" in my money and understand this world, but for now I want to put it somewhere thats going to beat inflation and not get lost in a random crash - its the only money I have aside from rainy day cash ISA. Maybe I can build up a "learning pot" or some mock portfolios to learn. Or do I (almost blindly) follow advice like Money Wise's first 50 funds portfolio suggestions and then learn to monitor those?
B) Which platform for me? Halifax seems to come out cheapest (?) on comparisons, or iWeb. HL and cavendish seem very popular but more expensive?
C) How do I assess the risk in each fund / trust my mum holds?
D) How do I choose the right time to sell the riskiest investments - if its better to hold for another couple of years to ride out potential market wobbles in March then we will. Is it just a case of look at the chart compared to an index and sell when relatively high.....?
He has left mum with circa £250k total in a variety of investment trusts, £7k in funds like Lindsell Train, and some cash. All contained in ISAs.
On his death I arranged via APS with the platforms for the investments to be exactly replicated in my mothers name. I know this could have been a chance to rebalance, change platform, reinvest elsewhere but there was simply not time to learn about this world and I figured he picked good investments so why not carry on for the time being and not miss out on continued growth over the time it takes me to learn what to do.
Mum (late 60s, retired) owns family home and is fortunate to have a great final salary pension and so says she does not need to take any income from investments. She is very risk averse but by the same token thinks she does not need this money for her income so growth would really be for her beneficiaries. Obviously needs change and she may need money for care, or even to secure that dream bungalow at short notice without needing to wait on selling her house. She doesn't like the idea of us paying inheritance tax but unless the limits don't keep pace with inflation I don't think she will be affected.
I think its pertinent to:
1) Work out what to do with my £40k (i would use mine and my wife's ISA allowances) and a monthly investment of circa £400 each.
2) Work out the risk level in mum's portfolio - and remove any high risk investments that I am not capable of managing yet / don't match her risk profile - but do this at the right time!
Questions:
A) For me I was looking at Lifestrategy 80, but found dad had setup similar for my sister with WITAN via cavendish fidelity- this seems to have outperformed lifestrategy 100, but has a £1.50 each month dealing fee. I'm late 30's, I have inertia in pressing the button to move such a large amount of money, I want it to be the right move! WItan or lifestrategy 80 or something else for my investment? I fully intend to get "active" in my money and understand this world, but for now I want to put it somewhere thats going to beat inflation and not get lost in a random crash - its the only money I have aside from rainy day cash ISA. Maybe I can build up a "learning pot" or some mock portfolios to learn. Or do I (almost blindly) follow advice like Money Wise's first 50 funds portfolio suggestions and then learn to monitor those?
B) Which platform for me? Halifax seems to come out cheapest (?) on comparisons, or iWeb. HL and cavendish seem very popular but more expensive?
C) How do I assess the risk in each fund / trust my mum holds?
D) How do I choose the right time to sell the riskiest investments - if its better to hold for another couple of years to ride out potential market wobbles in March then we will. Is it just a case of look at the chart compared to an index and sell when relatively high.....?