Savings and Investments thread

Here's a question, purely hypothetical. 

A long lost uncle leaves you some money, putting aside all the usual sensible stuff. Pay off mortgage, get a new V8 throttle monster, go on a nice holiday and consider sacking off work. Then reality bites and that 1k is going to be better off invested in the stock market. 

Taking whatever factors you want to take in we are looking to make money short or long term. Pick 5 places to put your money. Take into account high price but guaranteed dividends, false low prices looking for a spike, arsehole companies that are probably on my c*nt list that continue to increase in value. 

My 5 

1) Amazon. High price, a seemingly endless space for growth 
2) Tesla. They will take over the world one day, market leader in a growth market. Pushing every other EV manufacturer along and will be the ones who find a gamechanger of a range and charging solution 
3) BAE, not on the list for a nice reason. Loads of conflict worldwide and these guys lead the market in researching, developing and manufacturing different ways for paying customers to vaporise enemy combatants and selling them these bits of kit. 
4) BT Group, on here purely for guaranteed dividends. I reckon near enough every pension fund has exposure to this mob of charlatans currently recovering and rallying a mini revival of the share price by laying of staff in Openreach and looking to pursue a contractor workforce. Which is shit for the employees but the city seems to like inhuman practices like that. 
5) something I've noticed since tinkering and looking at stocks and shares etc is the biggest conglomerates are quite good at being massive shareholder driven options so it's a coin toss between BAT and BP. Decide which kills more people later and choosing based purely on potential growth and dividend compounding. I'm saying BP, we all need fuel in our cars whether we smoke or not 

WishIdStayedinthePub said:

PragueAddick said:

Which (Consumers Association) has strongly backed Panorama, and actually has done quite a lot of work on Revolut over the last few years.

I did smile at this:

"Customers seem happy with its service overall – indeed some are almost evangelical – but here at Which?, we can’t recommend putting significant sums in a Revolut account. "

That'll be the crypto bros, then😉

It's become a verb in Ireland, as in, "I"ll Revolut you fifty euro".  The local Irish banks (AIB, BOI) are finally waking up to the threat, as they've typically been protected from competition to date.

Meanwhile, there's a reason why Revolut doesn't yet have a license but it does seem like the FSA is starting to wobble.

Revolut is very popular in Ireland, when I was living in Northern Ireland it was really useful as it had good FX rates and I was near the border for when I was going back and forth, now I just use it when I go on holiday and use it for card payments etc. Was also easy to split bills or transfer between mates as you've said.

I wouldn't keep large sums in it at all, just spending money, but I know some do.

Here’s what my ex IFA said re my SIPP -

Rob7Lee said:

Carter said:

Here's a question, purely hypothetical. 

A long lost uncle leaves you some money, putting aside all the usual sensible stuff. Pay off mortgage, get a new V8 throttle monster, go on a nice holiday and consider sacking off work. Then reality bites and that 1k is going to be better off invested in the stock market. 

Taking whatever factors you want to take in we are looking to make money short or long term. Pick 5 places to put your money. Take into account high price but guaranteed dividends, false low prices looking for a spike, arsehole companies that are probably on my c*nt list that continue to increase in value. 

My 5 

1) Amazon. High price, a seemingly endless space for growth 
2) Tesla. They will take over the world one day, market leader in a growth market. Pushing every other EV manufacturer along and will be the ones who find a gamechanger of a range and charging solution 
3) BAE, not on the list for a nice reason. Loads of conflict worldwide and these guys lead the market in researching, developing and manufacturing different ways for paying customers to vaporise enemy combatants and selling them these bits of kit. 
4) BT Group, on here purely for guaranteed dividends. I reckon near enough every pension fund has exposure to this mob of charlatans currently recovering and rallying a mini revival of the share price by laying of staff in Openreach and looking to pursue a contractor workforce. Which is shit for the employees but the city seems to like inhuman practices like that. 
5) something I've noticed since tinkering and looking at stocks and shares etc is the biggest conglomerates are quite good at being massive shareholder driven options so it's a coin toss between BAT and BP. Decide which kills more people later and choosing based purely on potential growth and dividend compounding. I'm saying BP, we all need fuel in our cars whether we smoke or not 

Depends on what your portfolio currently looks like, but in reality rather than try and be too clever, just stick it in an S&P500 or FTSE 100/250 ETF. Depending on the sum trickle it in over time.

I do that in my main pension, but also have a smaller one where I trade shares to try and beat the markets, currently just about winning on that, but partly due to a big spike recently on SAGA shares (up 27% when I sold).

I think it would be unwise to completely ignore Asia, a region which is not suffering from declining birth rates.  US market is far too concentrated as well.  Diversification is important - recency bias has led investors to believe that you must invest in the US to get returns. History tells us this is not true.  

On the other side of the coin..............mortgages.

With the inflation numbers out yesterday the commentary is all about rate cuts in November & December - most likely 0.25% at a time.

Had emails from lenders since raising their rates. These are from Halifax, Barclays and now Accord. Both 2 year & 5 year fixes. Increases of between 0.15% to 0.25%.

felix_31 said:

Carter said:

Here's a question, purely hypothetical. 

A long lost uncle leaves you some money, putting aside all the usual sensible stuff. Pay off mortgage, get a new V8 throttle monster, go on a nice holiday and consider sacking off work. Then reality bites and that 1k is going to be better off invested in the stock market. 

Taking whatever factors you want to take in we are looking to make money short or long term. Pick 5 places to put your money. Take into account high price but guaranteed dividends, false low prices looking for a spike, arsehole companies that are probably on my c*nt list that continue to increase in value. 

My 5 

1) Amazon. High price, a seemingly endless space for growth 
2) Tesla. They will take over the world one day, market leader in a growth market. Pushing every other EV manufacturer along and will be the ones who find a gamechanger of a range and charging solution 
3) BAE, not on the list for a nice reason. Loads of conflict worldwide and these guys lead the market in researching, developing and manufacturing different ways for paying customers to vaporise enemy combatants and selling them these bits of kit. 
4) BT Group, on here purely for guaranteed dividends. I reckon near enough every pension fund has exposure to this mob of charlatans currently recovering and rallying a mini revival of the share price by laying of staff in Openreach and looking to pursue a contractor workforce. Which is shit for the employees but the city seems to like inhuman practices like that. 
5) something I've noticed since tinkering and looking at stocks and shares etc is the biggest conglomerates are quite good at being massive shareholder driven options so it's a coin toss between BAT and BP. Decide which kills more people later and choosing based purely on potential growth and dividend compounding. I'm saying BP, we all need fuel in our cars whether we smoke or not 

Amazon - probably worth it just for AWS and their cloud computing alone  

I just don't understand Tesla.  Why would I buy shares in a company which has 1 product, incredible competition and whose shares are unbelievably expensive? What is Tesla's moat?  Forget Musk and the cult of personality, but viewing it as a company - it produces fairly unimpressive, expensive cars which BYD, for example, can produce for a fraction of the cost with better range.  Toyota posts 3X profit compared to Tesla and yet has a PE of around 10 against Tesla's 35. Toyota, like most Japanese companies, a whole plethora of other business activities.  Plus, they're constantly spending on technological advancements in areas such as synthetic fuels and hydrogen.  They also sell petrol, hybrid and EVs - it is not a given that EVs will dominate in 30 years time - companies like Toyota will be able to pivot.  Just look at how the European car manufacturers have suffered from going all in on EVs.  Buying shares in Tesla, in my opinion, is big risk.  I can see the counter argument, however, and would like to hear some opinions! 

BAE - good stock, great buy in 2021

BT - huge pension fund liability.  

BP - Would be silly to bet against oil with whats going on in Middle East.  Also if people ignore these companies because of sustainability - I guarantee in 100 years time Shell and BP will still exist, even if they've moved away from oil.  They're in the best position to gain from the energy transition. 

I'm trying to start something here man, whats your top 5 

Advice please on the following real scenario regarding my father in law’s will:

facts:

1. MIL and FIL own a house valued at £650k and have £100k each in cash. They each own 50% of the property as Tenants in Common. No debts.
2. MIL was admitted to a care home with Alzheimer’s last month. Diagnosed 6 years ago and slowly deteriorating but no way of predicting how many years she will live. Care Home costs £80,000 per annum which is using up her cash as she doesn’t qualify for any financial support. The expectation is that the care home/council will put a charge on her share of the house to cover care home costs if she lives on past the point her cash runs out.
3. They currently have a mirror Will leaving everything to each other.
4. My FIL has anxiety disorder with a family history of heart disease albeit he and she are in their late 80s.

Our worry is that in the event that my FIL dies before my MIL, his assets all go to her which means the care home could call on all of that to pay for her care home costs which could wipe out the entire value if she lives for several years.

We are proposing to arrange for my FIL to update his will leaving his wealth to his son and daughter which limits the amount that can be called upon by the care home/council.

Are we doing the right thing? Are we overlooking anything crucial?

Thanks in advance for your advice/opinions.

TelMc32 said:

meldrew66 said:

Advice please on the following real scenario regarding my father in law’s will:

facts:

1. MIL and FIL own a house valued at £650k and have £100k each in cash. They each own 50% of the property as Tenants in Common. No debts.
2. MIL was admitted to a care home with Alzheimer’s last month. Diagnosed 6 years ago and slowly deteriorating but no way of predicting how many years she will live. Care Home costs £80,000 per annum which is using up her cash as she doesn’t qualify for any financial support. The expectation is that the care home/council will put a charge on her share of the house to cover care home costs if she lives on past the point her cash runs out.
3. They currently have a mirror Will leaving everything to each other.
4. My FIL has anxiety disorder with a history of heart disease albeit he and she are in their late 80s.

Our worry is that in the event that my FIL dies before my MIL, his assets all go to her which means the care home could call on all of that to pay for her care home costs which could wipe out the entire value if she lives for several years.

We are proposing to arrange for my FIL to update his will leaving his wealth to his son and daughter which limits the amount that can be called upon by the care home/council.

Are we doing the right thing? Are we overlooking anything crucial?

Thanks in advance for your advice/opinions.

You should speak to your lawyer about putting the property in a discretionary living trust for their son & daughter. We’ve done this with our family home and our lawyer advised that this would protect against issues such as this.  My concern would be that your MIL has already been admitted to care, so not sure if it would be too late. Hope your lawyer can sort something out for you and the family are OK.

Thanks Tel. From everything I’ve read on property trusts, it seems too late for us as doing it now would very likely be challenged by the council as us attempting to avoid paying care home fees because she was diagnosed 6 years ago and is already in the care home with insufficient cash available to pay for care in less than 2 years. At least having the house ownership as TIC limits the call on the house to 50% of the value.

TelMc32 said:

meldrew66 said:

Advice please on the following real scenario regarding my father in law’s will:

facts:

1. MIL and FIL own a house valued at £650k and have £100k each in cash. They each own 50% of the property as Tenants in Common. No debts.
2. MIL was admitted to a care home with Alzheimer’s last month. Diagnosed 6 years ago and slowly deteriorating but no way of predicting how many years she will live. Care Home costs £80,000 per annum which is using up her cash as she doesn’t qualify for any financial support. The expectation is that the care home/council will put a charge on her share of the house to cover care home costs if she lives on past the point her cash runs out.
3. They currently have a mirror Will leaving everything to each other.
4. My FIL has anxiety disorder with a history of heart disease albeit he and she are in their late 80s.

Our worry is that in the event that my FIL dies before my MIL, his assets all go to her which means the care home could call on all of that to pay for her care home costs which could wipe out the entire value if she lives for several years.

We are proposing to arrange for my FIL to update his will leaving his wealth to his son and daughter which limits the amount that can be called upon by the care home/council.

Are we doing the right thing? Are we overlooking anything crucial?

Thanks in advance for your advice/opinions.

You should speak to your lawyer about putting the property in a discretionary living trust for their son & daughter. We’ve done this with our family home and our lawyer advised that this would protect against issues such as this.  My concern would be that your MIL has already been admitted to care, so not sure if it would be too late. Hope your lawyer can sort something out for you and the family are OK.

Would be too late for this situation unfortunately, also these trusts have been challenged a number of times and rarely work. If the local authority can get a judge to agree the principal or main reason for the trust being set up was to avoid care fee's then it's not worth the paper it's written on. It's a deliberate deprivation of assets. What reason would you give for having set up the trust?

@telmc32 - yes I would have FIL change his will to leave his 50% (and cash!) to someone other than the MIL.

TelMc32 said:

meldrew66 said:

TelMc32 said:

meldrew66 said:

Advice please on the following real scenario regarding my father in law’s will:

facts:

1. MIL and FIL own a house valued at £650k and have £100k each in cash. They each own 50% of the property as Tenants in Common. No debts.
2. MIL was admitted to a care home with Alzheimer’s last month. Diagnosed 6 years ago and slowly deteriorating but no way of predicting how many years she will live. Care Home costs £80,000 per annum which is using up her cash as she doesn’t qualify for any financial support. The expectation is that the care home/council will put a charge on her share of the house to cover care home costs if she lives on past the point her cash runs out.
3. They currently have a mirror Will leaving everything to each other.
4. My FIL has anxiety disorder with a history of heart disease albeit he and she are in their late 80s.

Our worry is that in the event that my FIL dies before my MIL, his assets all go to her which means the care home could call on all of that to pay for her care home costs which could wipe out the entire value if she lives for several years.

We are proposing to arrange for my FIL to update his will leaving his wealth to his son and daughter which limits the amount that can be called upon by the care home/council.

Are we doing the right thing? Are we overlooking anything crucial?

Thanks in advance for your advice/opinions.

You should speak to your lawyer about putting the property in a discretionary living trust for their son & daughter. We’ve done this with our family home and our lawyer advised that this would protect against issues such as this.  My concern would be that your MIL has already been admitted to care, so not sure if it would be too late. Hope your lawyer can sort something out for you and the family are OK.

Thanks Tel. From everything I’ve read on property trusts, it seems too late for us as doing it now would very likely be challenged by the council as us attempting to avoid paying care home fees because she was diagnosed 6 years ago and is already in the care home with insufficient cash available to pay for care in less than 2 years. At least having the house ownership as TIC limits the call on the house to 50% of the value.

My understanding is that the property should be disregarded if your FIL remains living there. Even if they value the property, they have to value it isn’t the valuation of the property that has to be taken, but the beneficial interest. As it’s highly unlikely that you can sell 50% of a house, then this value can actually be nil. 

It’s an absolute minefield though that should be taken with a specialist lawyer. We used Caroline Shelton at Irwin Mitchell, I’d known her since they were Thomas Eggar, and she was excellent.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fs38_property_and_paying_for_residential_care_fcs.pdf

To be clear, the council would have to wait for the house to be sold before they can get paid what they were owed relating to their charge over the house so, yes, they get zero until then.

TelMc32 said:

Rob7Lee said:

TelMc32 said:

meldrew66 said:

Advice please on the following real scenario regarding my father in law’s will:

facts:

1. MIL and FIL own a house valued at £650k and have £100k each in cash. They each own 50% of the property as Tenants in Common. No debts.
2. MIL was admitted to a care home with Alzheimer’s last month. Diagnosed 6 years ago and slowly deteriorating but no way of predicting how many years she will live. Care Home costs £80,000 per annum which is using up her cash as she doesn’t qualify for any financial support. The expectation is that the care home/council will put a charge on her share of the house to cover care home costs if she lives on past the point her cash runs out.
3. They currently have a mirror Will leaving everything to each other.
4. My FIL has anxiety disorder with a history of heart disease albeit he and she are in their late 80s.

Our worry is that in the event that my FIL dies before my MIL, his assets all go to her which means the care home could call on all of that to pay for her care home costs which could wipe out the entire value if she lives for several years.

We are proposing to arrange for my FIL to update his will leaving his wealth to his son and daughter which limits the amount that can be called upon by the care home/council.

Are we doing the right thing? Are we overlooking anything crucial?

Thanks in advance for your advice/opinions.

You should speak to your lawyer about putting the property in a discretionary living trust for their son & daughter. We’ve done this with our family home and our lawyer advised that this would protect against issues such as this.  My concern would be that your MIL has already been admitted to care, so not sure if it would be too late. Hope your lawyer can sort something out for you and the family are OK.

Would be too late for this situation unfortunately, also these trusts have been challenged a number of times and rarely work. If the local authority can get a judge to agree the principal or main reason for the trust being set up was to avoid care fee's then it's not worth the paper it's written on. It's a deliberate deprivation of assets. What reason would you give for having set up the trust?

@telmc32 - yes I would have FIL change his will to leave his 50% (and cash!) to someone other than the MIL.

In my case @Rob7Lee it’s a little complicated, but I am joint owner with my dad on the family home, which is also my primary residence.  A discretionary trust was put in place so that I keep the house when he passes and my will (and the trust) then leaves it to my sister when I do. All eventualities covered if I actually go first, with my niece & nephew also benefitting.  

Agree it’s too late in @meldrew66 case, but works for me and our circumstances.

Yes a slightly different situation to the 'couple' norm - I'd caveat though that I've seen three people now over the past 6-7 years who had trusts set up by legal firms and 2 have lost against the council (Both Dartford) the other is waiting to hear (although that's KCC). Different situation to yours (all husbands and wives) Maybe they are unlucky, but as I understand it, as they could show no other good reason for the trust (when a will/wills could have dealt with it) the view handed down was it was simply a deliberate deprivation of asset (which it was!).

golfaddick said:

TelMc32 said:

Rob7Lee said:

TelMc32 said:

meldrew66 said:

Advice please on the following real scenario regarding my father in law’s will:

facts:

1. MIL and FIL own a house valued at £650k and have £100k each in cash. They each own 50% of the property as Tenants in Common. No debts.
2. MIL was admitted to a care home with Alzheimer’s last month. Diagnosed 6 years ago and slowly deteriorating but no way of predicting how many years she will live. Care Home costs £80,000 per annum which is using up her cash as she doesn’t qualify for any financial support. The expectation is that the care home/council will put a charge on her share of the house to cover care home costs if she lives on past the point her cash runs out.
3. They currently have a mirror Will leaving everything to each other.
4. My FIL has anxiety disorder with a history of heart disease albeit he and she are in their late 80s.

Our worry is that in the event that my FIL dies before my MIL, his assets all go to her which means the care home could call on all of that to pay for her care home costs which could wipe out the entire value if she lives for several years.

We are proposing to arrange for my FIL to update his will leaving his wealth to his son and daughter which limits the amount that can be called upon by the care home/council.

Are we doing the right thing? Are we overlooking anything crucial?

Thanks in advance for your advice/opinions.

You should speak to your lawyer about putting the property in a discretionary living trust for their son & daughter. We’ve done this with our family home and our lawyer advised that this would protect against issues such as this.  My concern would be that your MIL has already been admitted to care, so not sure if it would be too late. Hope your lawyer can sort something out for you and the family are OK.

Would be too late for this situation unfortunately, also these trusts have been challenged a number of times and rarely work. If the local authority can get a judge to agree the principal or main reason for the trust being set up was to avoid care fee's then it's not worth the paper it's written on. It's a deliberate deprivation of assets. What reason would you give for having set up the trust?

@telmc32 - yes I would have FIL change his will to leave his 50% (and cash!) to someone other than the MIL.

In my case @Rob7Lee it’s a little complicated, but I am joint owner with my dad on the family home, which is also my primary residence.  A discretionary trust was put in place so that I keep the house when he passes and my will (and the trust) then leaves it to my sister when I do. All eventualities covered if I actually go first, with my niece & nephew also benefitting.  

Agree it’s too late in @meldrew66 case, but works for me and our circumstances.

I thought that you couldn't  put a property into a Trust & remain living in it. Is it not A gift with Reservation ?

No, IHT is still payable with this type of trust. 

redman said:

IHT in upcoming budget. We talked earlier about likely changes in upcoming budget but mainly about pensions and ISA's. The latest gossip seems to be about NI and IHT. On IHT the main gossip seems to be the broad heading "reliefs". Anybody got any any ideas what the specific thinking may be here. I'm particularly wondering about the use of gifts, the 7 year rule and the tapering relief. If I'm thinking of making a gift would someone be wise to make before October 30?