I have about £1000 available to save each month, how should i invest my money?

Question

Will i get a better return on stocks and shares or should i buy property etc?

I didn't mean buy a property with £1000 obviously. I meant to use that money to pay off a mortgage on another home, i.e buy-to-let or something like that.

Answer 1

You should always pay off your debt first, as the interest rate on your debt is nearly always higher then return from any form of investment. This also include your mortgage. Yes, it may be 5% APR, but that is spread over 25 year or so and if you look at your mortgage agreement then you may realise that you pay nearly 70% of your loan for interest over this period, and also you pay off your interest first in the beginning years of your mortgage. However if you pay off your mortgage first then you not only have the 1k per month extra, you will have also freed up money from the mortgage payment, your OWN home and also an asset that will appreciate over time.

Then you can think about putting your money in other higher risk investments such as managed funds, index tracker or shares. Generally speaking if you don't know too much about finance but want to put some money in shares then your best bet is to put it in index tracker. This form of investment is cheaper then managed funds, goes up (and down) with the market and can be put into Maxi-ISA. Try the M&G FTSE 100 index tracker (I'm a customer). Managed funds in theory should do better then the market as there are fund managers who are supposed to be clever clogs and be able to buy low and sell high. In practice however most of them disappoint and have higher charge then index tracker. Your money is also usually locked in for 5 years minimum (or pay a penalty to take money out). The final option, shares, should be avoided if you haven't a clue about share market.

I'm a doctor and call myself an finance amateur. I have bought shares and have made (and lost) a bit of money. For example I spotted a share called Burren Energy which I bought for £3.50 2 years ago. If I had held on it would be worth £9.00 today. nearly 300% gain. However I also bought a share called Swallowfield at £1, then it slowly drifted down to a lowly 35p in 1 year. I got out at 45p. A spectacular loss of 55%. Overall I have made money (esp with dividend) but you really need to know what you are doing.

Conclusion: Put it in an Maxi-ISA index tracker. The rest put it in a high-interest regualr saver account and take the money out on maturity for holiday or something.

Answer 2

You are leaving out a critical piece of information. How soon are you going to need the money and how much of it? Assuming you are not going to need the bulk of money for at least 20 years (as in saving for retirement), you should invest about 70% of your portfolio in stocks and about 30% in bonds. Consider investing at least 20% of your portfolio abroad.

Property may be a good idea, but not now; prices in most industrialized countries are at their historic highs or near (and Britain leads the way). You may, however, try to find something in Germany where prices haven't moved much in the last few years. But GBP 1,000 a month is not likely to buy you a diversified property portfolio, so I'd say revisit the idea some time about 2010...

Answer 3

Open several Bank/Building Society accounts over a year or 6 month period. Put the same amount of money in each of them. At the end of a year, keep the one that has earnt you the most interest open. Move the money from the other accounts over. Or you could buy a property and rent it out.

Don't forget to buy some Premium Bonds - you don't lose anything, unless you win something you haven't gain anything - but at least your money will be out of harms way.

Answer 4

If you think you will use the money in the next year or two there are some good high interest accounts around. Online accounts are usually best eg Firstdirect currently about 4.7%. If you can commit a regular monthly payment for at least 12 months you can get 7% at Abbey (Fixed Rate Monthly Saver).
Use the Yahoo finance links to see the accounts on offer.

Answer 5

I would steer well clear of property, you wouldn't have enough to buy any propery outright so would still need to mortgage and if you were to rent out you could find yourself in a lot of debt if the tennants were trouble. I would suggest a high interest account or government bonds, speak to an advisor.

Answer 6

When you say you have £1k spare per month, what have you done to your income before that figure.

As an average, everyone should have different types of savings in progress. Here is what you should be doing based on your monthly guaranteed pay.

Pension Plan: Half your age and this percent.
Savings: 10% of your monthly pay, BEFORE other spending
Emergency: 6 months expenses stashed just in case
Extras: Any extra you get each month for investing & treats

Answer 7

Lucky you ! I wouldn't risk it on stocks & shares unless you are prepared to lose some of it. Get in touch with a financial advisor or take a look in The Mail on Sunday financial section, it always has lists of the best places to invest. Happy saving.

Answer 8

There is a traditional way of saving in a business community in India(Tamilnadu). What they do is to split the amount which is available for saving into four equal parts. Invest one part in business, one part in gold, one part in land and the balance in cash for any emergency. This formula works in a good way. With so many mutual funds investing in gold, land etc., you can invest 3/4 of your saving i.e.750 pounds in different mutual funds in the following way (250 pounds in high yielding mutual fund scheme, 250 pounds in mutual fund scheme specializing in property development/land, 250 pounds in funds dealing in gold or gold itself) and keep 250 pounds in liquid cash.
This will balance all the economical imbalances that may occur in any country and this methodology has helped the business community to flourish for many centuries and are still flourishing.

Answer 9

You cannot buy property with £1000 so I suggest a brokerage account at TD Waterhouse.

Answer 10

Invest in funds. Mostly in UK or Western European based funds. Put 10% each in Japan and Global Emerging Markets

Since you can invest regularly you will benefit from "Dollar Cost Averaging", which will mean that you can also benefit from falls in the prices.