Author Topic: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?  (Read 5556 times)

shelivesthedream

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I'm with Hargreaves Lansdown for my ISA and always think there must be a better option out there but it's a big commitment to change. What is the lowest yearly total fees you have ever found and where were they?

frugledoc

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #1 on: July 29, 2017, 04:42:13 PM »
Hargreaves Lansdowne is extremely cheap as long as you don't hold funds.

£45 capped in the ISA/ year.

Expensive for funds though.

Playing with Fire UK

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2017, 03:18:13 AM »
I really like Halifax Share Dealing if you are happy to stick to a handful of ETFs and buy in bigger chunks. £12.50 per year plus £2 a purchase for regular purchases.

There was a great quiz floating around that asked what you intended to hold and how many trades per year and then made a recommendation, does anyone remember it or have a link?

TartanTallulah

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2017, 03:22:02 AM »
I have a small sum in a Stocks and Shares ISA with Hargreaves Lansdown, which I only started in the last tax year. I believe it's reputed to be among the more expensive platforms, but I looked at the charging structure of the various platforms, got bamboozled (my brain doesn't handle that sort of information very well), and decided that not investing at all could be the most expensive choice of all.

I chose BestInvest for my husband's SIPP, also on the basis of, "narrow it down to a handful of low cost options with user-friendly websites, do eeny-meeny-miney-mo, and get on with it."








UKMustache

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2017, 04:34:12 AM »
Vanguard ISA's are available in the UK now with a SIPP coming next year.

You'll do well to beat these fees!

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investing-explained/isa

Rightflyer

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2017, 05:32:03 AM »
We were planning on signing up with AJ Bell Youinvest next week for SIPP and ISA.

Does anyone have any experience with AJ Bell?

Any strong reasons we should be considering another firm?


AnswerIs42

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #6 on: July 30, 2017, 08:36:19 AM »
Hargreaves Lansdowne is extremely cheap as long as you don't hold funds.

£45 capped in the ISA/ year.

Expensive for funds though.
Yeah, this. Most of my investments are in Vanguard ETFs in HL. I already have enough to max out the £200 cap for the SIPP and the £45 cap for the ISA, so any new investments effectively have a marginal platform charge of zero. And VUSA (Vanguard S&P 500 ETF) has an annual charge of 0.07%. Can't get much cheaper than that.

shelivesthedream

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2017, 09:12:51 AM »
Vanguard ISA's are available in the UK now with a SIPP coming next year.

You'll do well to beat these fees!

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investing-explained/isa

!!!!! SUCH EXCITEMENT! When did this happen?!?! I am so on this.

poppydog

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #8 on: July 30, 2017, 10:50:08 AM »
Our SIPPs are with HL, they contain Investment Trusts rather than funds so the charges are capped at £200 per year.  We also have ISAs with HL but I'm about to transfer them to iWeb.  We have funds in the ISAs and the fees are 0.45%.  It will cost me 2 x £25 to open the iWeb accounts, and a £5 charge per fund purchase, but there's no holding fee and it will work out substantially cheaper in the long run.

I'm also conscious of having all our eggs in one basket (HL) even though they are, I'm sure, very safe and secure.

UKMustache

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #9 on: July 30, 2017, 11:55:15 AM »
Vanguard ISA's are available in the UK now with a SIPP coming next year.

You'll do well to beat these fees!

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investing-explained/isa

!!!!! SUCH EXCITEMENT! When did this happen?!?! I am so on this.

Only in the last couple of months.  I'm keeping the HL account under my name for the emerging markets funds I have (these are returning circa 25% per annum and I want to hold onto them) and I'm opening a Vanguard account next tax year for my wife.   That'll be the bulk of our savings, lifestrategy 80.  Buy and forget!

Playing with Fire UK

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #10 on: July 31, 2017, 12:33:42 AM »
iWeb have reduced the opening charge significantly from what I remember it being.

I assume most people have seen Monevator's List.

StiffUpperLip

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #11 on: July 31, 2017, 02:54:23 PM »
I felt similarly to some previous posters in that analysis paralysis set in when trying to decide asset allocation and figure out different platform fee structures and eventually just set uo my sipp with HL because not investing seemed like the worst move vs paying a little more in fees my first year in...

I plan to open an isa with Vanguard once my Sipp contributions reach a certain value for the year, as a 40% taxpayer I have a certain amount I want to push into the sipp before looking at the isa, plus I don't want to have to pay my child benefit back simply because one of us earns over the arbitrary 50k threshold...

Vanguard sure looks like they'll offer a sipp from next tax year so that might be the point to consolidate...

dreams_and_discoveries

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #12 on: July 31, 2017, 11:50:01 PM »

I assume most people have seen Monevator's List.

I second the monevator list, which is updated regularly.

In short it really depends on what you hold and how often you trade - there isn't a one size fits all recommendation.

shelivesthedream

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #13 on: August 01, 2017, 02:44:20 AM »
Ugh. I've committed to opening a LISA but turns out basically no one offers them. I'm already with HL so am going to open it with them. Those of you who are also with HL: what funds/ETFs/whatevers are you buying? I find all the options very confusing.

AnswerIs42

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #14 on: August 01, 2017, 05:50:46 AM »
Ugh. I've committed to opening a LISA but turns out basically no one offers them. I'm already with HL so am going to open it with them. Those of you who are also with HL: what funds/ETFs/whatevers are you buying? I find all the options very confusing.

Their trackers list is a good place to start: http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/index-tracker-funds/wealth-150

Then maybe consider moving to Vanguard ETFs when you have a large enough sum.

climbgirl

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #15 on: August 01, 2017, 10:36:46 AM »
Just switched to Vanguard yesterday! Their platform/account fee is 0.15% - TD is 0.30%, Fidelity 0.35% and Hargreaves 0.45%.  It'll be hard to beat Vanguard's fee (they only offer Vanguard funds of course).  Minimum investment is £500, or £100 a month, so a pretty low bar.

Hargreave's shareprice dropped 5% when Vanguard announced they were launching ISAs in the UK - so clearly viewed as a threat! Very soft launch, it happened at the end of May apparently.

TartanTallulah

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #16 on: August 01, 2017, 11:44:25 AM »
Ugh. I've committed to opening a LISA but turns out basically no one offers them. I'm already with HL so am going to open it with them. Those of you who are also with HL: what funds/ETFs/whatevers are you buying? I find all the options very confusing.

I'm drip-feeding into the Legal and General International Index Trust with HL. I also have a small amount of money in a global healthcare fund and an emerging markets fund, but those are to add an element of interest to my tiny little portfolio without disappearing down the black hole of picking individual shares - I've done that in the past, around the turn of the millennium, and I'm not temperamentally suited to it.

It does mean that I'm overexposed, if one can be overexposed to the entire global stock market (I believe the answer is yes because some companies are bigger than entire countries) because my SIPP is also wholly invested in a global tracker.

RobFIRE

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #17 on: August 04, 2017, 08:38:06 AM »
I use Interactive Investor. £20 a quarter fee in total for investments, ISAs and a SIPP (the SIPP did have a ~£100 set up fee and does charge £50 or something for each transfer in). No % platform fee. £10 per trade but each quarter given £20 in trade credit, so for buy and hold lump sum investments I've paid no trading fees (I believe there's a £1.50 a month regular investment option that I haven't used). I specifically wanted a platform with a flat fee rather than a %, as (at least at the time around a year ago) by comparison HL was charging 0.45% platform fee, once you have £20k or so it is cheaper to pay a flat fee than a % platform fee, and the difference is huge once you have FIRE-level investment numbers. Interactive Investor provides access to all the main Vanguard funds etc. so I've picked a couple of those. I also liked being able to have one platform with all of investments, ISA and SIPP covered.

As mentioned, depending on your needs the different platforms have different benefits given different fees/%fees, trading costs etc.

Playing with Fire UK

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Re: What is the lowest fee platform and index fund you have found?
« Reply #18 on: August 06, 2017, 12:52:19 AM »
www.brokercompare.info is the type of comparison tool I was thinking of. Not sure how good this one is but you may find it easier than the giant tables or searching through fee tables.