Advice needed

Witchie

I recently got a little bit of money that I want to put aside for my son's education. I want to have at least 10k for him when he goes to university in 4 years time so was wondering where is the best place to invest. I could put in about 8k now but would prefer if could put less in!

Should I go down the credit union or bank route and if so which banks are the best bet or should I look elsewhere?

VINCWM

Never trust the banks.

Grecco

Try one of these
http://www.friendsfirst.ie/investment-centre/fund-information/
I`d be in favor of picking the F & C managed investment fund but its best speak to one of the advisers first

HowFinancial

Try An Post or KBC for Fixed Term Deposits

Liam D Ferguson

In order for you to turn €8,000 into €10,000 over the space of four years, you'd need to achieve a return of at least 5.75% per year AFTER charges and taxes. You won't get that on deposit and you may or may not get that by investing in higher-risk funds. On the funds side, assume around 1% per year annual charge, so you'd need to be getting a return of more than 7% per year.

Will some funds achieve >7% over the next four years? Yes.

Can anyone tell you now which ones will and which ones won't? No.

You need to either lower your target or be prepared to invest in something fairly high risk, which means that it could be worth €10,000 in four years' time, it could be worth less than what you invested, or any point in between.

I'd be inclined to look for the highest deposit rate you can find and accept that it won't be worth €10,000 in four years' time. State Savings / An Post offer 15% after 4 years with no product charges. See also here.

dolmen

Liam D (seems sound ) or anyone got any advice in investing £20k for retirement 10 yrs or so ?

box_car_maker

Buy the s+ p ETF and your pretty sure to make over 5% per anum , historically it averages 10 , dropped 40% in 2008 though

Liam D Ferguson

dolmen wrote: »

Liam D (seems sound ) or anyone got any advice in investing £20k for retirement 10 yrs or so ?

Depends on your circumstances. Relevant questions that anyone should ask before making a recommendation would (at a bare minimum) be: -

• Your tax rate?
• Other pension funds?
• Other sources of income in retirement?
• Employment status? Self-employed, employee, company director?
• Level of risk you're willing to take with the fund?
• Salary?

Otherwise the advice might or might not be appropriate to your circumstances. For example, if you've already got an entitlement to a big pension and/or a lot of other taxable income in retirement (e.g. rental income) then contributing to a pension might not be suitable. If your pension is likely to be taxed at 41% when you retire but you're only getting tax relief at 41% now, there isn't as much of an incentive. In fairness only a lucky few will have accumulated enough of a pension that they'll be on the 41% tax rate in retirement. Most people will get tax relief at 41% on contributions and will get the pension out taxed at either 20% or 0%.

Level or risk you're willing to take is hugely important but also a very personal decision. I might be happy to put it all into shares, for the potential for good growth over the next ten years. But I'd be aware that with extra potential comes extra risk - the shares could go up or down in value.

The next man might be unhappy to take such risk and would want a guaranteed return, even if the growth potential is lower.

Neither one is wrong - it's all about what's right for you.