Saving for the long term
As I sat across from Billy, my thoughts turned to how we could help him. Billy was the son of one of my clients, and his Dad had asked me to give him some advice on how best to invest some of his money.
Billy had around £12,000 to put aside on a long term basis and wanted guidance on how to do that. He had a good job, still lived at home with his parents and told me he could save around a £1,000 per month from his job as an Engineer. He was still under 25 years of age and didn’t have a steady partner.
“What do you mean by long term?” was my first question after exchanging pleasantries. “Around five, maybe more, years”, was his response. “I want to save up for something special when I’m 30. I don’t know what yet, and I want to build up the capital I have available, for the future.”
“Ok, well let’s carry out a Risk Profile for you and establish how much Risk you are prepared to take. Once we’ve ticked all the boxes, we can have a conversation to find our if the tick chart truly represents your attitude to risk and your views of Ethical Investment.”
Billy turned out to be in the High Medium range in regard to Risk and we suggested a tax efficient Stocks and Shares Individual Savings account would best serve his purposes but rather than invest the whole £12,000, he keep back £2,000 as an emergency fund.
We completed the Financial Fact Find, Billy signed all the regulatory paperwork, and he left our office with me undertaking to research the market to identify a suitable Fund which
- matched his Risk Profile,
- was well diversified,
- had a good past performance record (although I did explain that that was really no guide to future performance),
- was invested with a well respected fund manager,
- had reasonably low charges and
- had no exit charges.
How can we help?
We find more and more clients are looking for ethical investment and we can do this for you as one of our investment partners specialises in this area. By establishing your ethical views and the level of financial risk you are prepared to take, we can build a bespoke ethical portfolio to suit your requirements.