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yup - and offers diversification benefits and can be done fairly easily through pooled funds, but there are restrictions for physical property, the main one being residential for personal use, but this is not my area of expertise, so I would recommend seeking advice. Hope that helps!

Gold gone up 22% last year.

@@LauraLang-hx5yo yes, gold performed strongly in 2024, and actually over the past 5 years has risen 81%. This is because it's seen as a safe haven asset, a hedge against inflation, and a diversifier away from the more traditional financial assets of shares and bonds, which is useful when times are uncertain as they are now. But the price can be volatile. As such, one strategy I always point to with alternative assets such as these (as they are known) is never putting too much of your portfolio in a single position such as gold. Think of all the alternative assets you could potentially look at: other precious metals, commodities, private equity, hedge funds such as absolute return funds, infrastructure funds, and so forth. May sure you understand the risk before investing though. Hope that helps!

Hi there, I'm not a qualified financial adviser so you would need to speak to one for tailored advice to your specific financial circumstances, but broadly, the rules are that you can transfer money from a workplace pension into a personal pension, which is why SIPPs are great for consolidating various workplace pensions, but speak to the person (probably in HR) who runs the scheme regarding details on this as transfers may attract exit fees, impact benefits, or affect employer contributions (some of which Alice addresses). In terms of transferring to a regular savings account, in order to access a workplace or private pension you need to be at least 55 years old, rising to 57 in 2028, so this may restrict you. At this age you can take 25% tax free, however the remaining 75% is taxable as income. Also, if you access the 75%, you will permanently reduce annual contributions that attract tax relief from up to £60k down to £10k. Hope that helps!

Many thanks

Hi there, I think there will be little change in that regard. Not only is it a long-established, leading retail investment platform in the UK, it is heavily regulated by the FCA and any investments that are made through the platform are actually ring-fenced by an entity called a custodian, which separates your money from the business'. The incoming consortium seem to be making a play on growth in the UK investor market, which sounds positive to me and that they are seeking more of the same from HL. Hope that helps!

@@stepstoinvesting Thank you.

Hi there, their ready-made portfolios are definitely a hands-off way of investing across a very diverse set of investments and with a pre-ordained level of risk, but of course they remove the choice and the option of using funds with stock pickers selecting investments as the underlying investments are all passive index-tracking ETFs. I would also say there are many firms that offer these sorts of products - you might want to check out our Vanguard videos too. Hope that helps!

Hi there, if your question regards how many funds you require to be sufficiently diversified, then a 'fund of funds' such as the LifeStrategy funds will provide more than enough given you are invested in at least ten underlying funds in each product, and the asset allocation is designed to spread your money across lots of different markets. Some investors may invest in big diversified products such as these as a 'core' in their portfolio, and then add smaller 'satellite' positions in more specialised investments to have a bit more fun with investing. I am not an adviser though and I don't know your personal circumstances, so that must be up to you. Hope that helps. Steps to Investing

@@stepstoinvesting Thanks for the helpful reply and that exactly confirmed my thoughts. I am in the process now of transferring to Interactive Investor as I like the low annual capped fees, and as as well as ETF's including vanguard, I also like investing in some high dividend paying stocks like Legal and General, which generally pay a steady 7-8% dividends each year. Previously my pension was with Legal and General and I was paying .45% annual fees which have become huge now my portfolio has grown after 25 years!

All fair points. With Trading 212, the stinger can be FX fees. With InvestEngine, super-cheap, but I agree it's very hard to see how they make any money, unless the SIPPs 0.15% charge and managed services are sufficient. My guess to their business model is to binge on investor capital and swell the AUM, and worry about profits later. Too risky perhaps? The thing with Vanguard I particularly like and probably should have mentioned in the video: very knowledgeable team that pick-up the phone after 2 rings. This is very valuable, particularly when markets are behaving badly and investors are potentially getting anxious about their portfolios and want to know what's going on. But if cheap is all you care about, can't disagree with you.

Investengine makes you sign up for 10 years on first payment. Which is ridiculous. I didn't sign up for that reason. Vanguard is proven and still cheap.

Thanks Charlotte!

Hi there! Thanks for watching. Sorry for the slow reply - I wanted to check with Alice before I came back. First, I must make clear, we don't offer 'advice' as we don't know your personal circumstances and are not regulated to do so. Nonetheless, Alice has offered some pointers: "I think any pension contributions are going to see him well in the long run and which is best for his extra contributions will depend on what he wants for retirement - eg does he want the investment choice a SIPP can offer? If he needs access sooner than retirement, then an ISA is more flexible - in reality it’s often best to do a bit of both." Hope that helps!

SIPP can’t be accessed until you are 55, but you get 20% tax back. ISA can be accessed all the time, but no 20% tax rebate. All the providers charges fees too, it is certain percentage per month.

Hi there! Great question: we think it encourages parents to teach financial education to their kids so that they are confident with money concepts and clear the extraordinary benefits of having a nest egg at such a young age, discouraging them from squandering it. At 16 they are allowed to start making investment decisions for their Junior ISAs (but not withdrawals), which makes their 16th birthday a potentially goal for when you want them to have all of the information. The government's Money Helper website has some really good tips on teaching kids about money, so please check it out. They suggest that the process can begin as early three or four, with very simple savings concepts, so that by their teenage years you've worked your way towards teaching more complex investing concepts, and giving them more financial responsibility such as investment decisions for the Junior ISA. Hope that helps!

@@stepstoinvesting if you invest in your own isa you can give them money when they get to 18 and more when they need it. dangerous to give an 18 year old access to that osrt of money

In my opinion Nest returns are criminally low.

It's true we don't always get much control over our workplace pension schemes - which is why topping-up our retirement savings using private pensions such as SIPPs can be magical! Check out our recent video on ISA vs SIPPs. Steps to Investing.

Hi there, it's a good question and depends on whether you reached state pension age before or after 2016, but the best way top check is to request a state pension forecast. The government service MoneyHelper has all the details, check out the page here: www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/state-pension/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions-and-the-state-pension. Hope that helps!

No problem Charlotte! Please subscribe to the channel for all the latest!

Hi there, we have lots of investing platform reviews at stepstoinvesting.com, as well as website walk-throughs in the channel, so please check them out. The largest four in the UK are Hargreaves Lansdown, Interactive Investor, AJ Bell, and PensionBee (only for pensions). Hope that helps!

And we can have both, right?

@@GlennRayat absolutely! Just remember your contribution limits per tax year: so across pensions (inc workplace), a max of £60k or 100% of earnings, whichever is lower, in order to benefit for tax relief; and for ISAs £20k, spread across different ISAs however you wish (potentially rising another £5k for UK shares once the consultation on the 'British ISA' is complete and the treasury launches the scheme). Hope that helps!

@@stepstoinvesting Thank you. Very helpful explanation.

@@GlennRayat very happy to help!

Hi there, please remember that PensionBee is de facto just a dealing platform / online broker - the underlying funds that your money is invested in are managed by various, large established investment firms, whose assets are ring-fenced by custodians. For example, in the tailored plan, the large US investment firm BlackRock is supplying the underlying target date retirement funds, and its custodian is Bank of New York Mellon. PensionBee's pension schemes are also protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which protect the investors in case of an investment firm failure up to the value of £85,000 per person per scheme (this doesn't cover investment loses though). Hope that helps.

avoid middle men to reduce the cost

I see a lot of replies on similar channels where distrust in pension platforms is expressed. Pensions are heavily heavily regulated. Im old enough to remember the Maxwell affair, so I can see where some of the distrust comes from. Like a lot of employees up and down the country, my main workplace pension is with NEST. Once you get used to that platform, it’s easy to adjust to most others. I’ve recently opened a PensionBee account - as in May 24 they permitted you to open one without transferring. So far I’m very happy. No contribution fees is a big attraction given that NEST charge a whopping 1.8% on every contribution, including tax relief and employer contributions.

Hi there, great question. You can buy shares and hold them for as long or as little as you like, whether you're in an ISA or not. The great thing about an ISA is that there no taxes to pay on any gains or income. The 5 year holding period you might've heard of comes from widely accepted guidance which states that, given the risks involved in buying shares, and the fact their values are volatile and may fall, if your financial goal is less than five years away stock market investing is ill-advised. At Steps we believe in the message of sensible long term investing, so would even say give it longer - say ten years - and consider funds instead of individual company shares as these diversify a lot of the risks that come from being tied to the fate of one company. DIY investing platforms have lots of products in this regard: trackers, funds, and investment trusts. Or you could opt for a new-breed investing app, which simply puts you in a collection of diversified trackers suited to how much risk you want to take. Hope that helps. Our Kids and Retirement campaigns are starting over the next few weeks - please check them out.

Why do you say ill advised if investing less than 5 years , if I can make gains on buying low and selling high ? Regards Clive

@@clivevino1560 You can still make money in short periods, but we (and the regulator, the FCA) say 5 years due to the risks of financial loss. This is because, over short periods, stock markets bounce around a lot as economic information is folded into the value of shares - but over longer periods, this tends to iron out and markets tend to rise (nothing is guaranteed though). Time also gives compounding the space to work its magic too. What we want at Steps is to help everyday investors manage the investment risks they take so that they can hopefully steadily built wealth over time. 'Get rich slow' is how we think of it. Hope that helps

Thank you , I appreciated your reply .@@stepstoinvesting