Ask your SJP adviser, if their own fund products are so good (as that is wheee they will steer your money), how much non-SJP advised money is in them? It’d be plenty if they were good
SJP fees very high. One side of my family uses a local high street IFA, another uses a more national brand. Both pay substanitally less than SJP would charge.
Honestly if you can't be arsed to do it yourself, which is fair, then SJP is expensive but not terrible. Have a look at the fees charged, both for managing your portfolio and the management expense ratios (MERs) in the funds and have a look.
If either of those is above 1%, you can do better.
Last meeting I had with an SJP guy trying to get my pension a couple of years ago, he spent quite some time on how some of their in-house funds were managed by superstar fund managers, in particular Woodford. I'd been reading Tom Winnifrith's and others scribblings by then so that backfired a bit from the adviser's perspective
they r all tied and expensive, or cannot offer the best products but cheaper plus getting kickbacks
and u can always negoti7 fees
“do it urself” is fine, but u buy an insurance policy of sorts in that it’s formal professional advice and it saves u time. plus do it urself doesn’t always get u into the best products and u take the risk of not knowing about something more suitable
if they’re not tied, they won’t be able to give u some products which might be better (true of tied, too, of course, though the big managers r incentivised to offer the biggest ranges)
so in a given scenario, yes, a cheap local guy might be able to offer wot u need
but not always. remember, there’s a reason they’re able to charge high fees
lawyers r famously bad at understanding that ppl need to make money
Most people don't need more than a do it yourself approach. If you need more then pay a financial planner on an hourly basis. But really that should only start to be needed if your pensions and ISAs are maxed and you have a few investment properties.
Find an independent Chartered Financial Planning firm. The good ones will let you know if you’re the right fit and if it’s worth it and will be open about fees and what will be involved.
SJP are all about sales and making you think they are doing something extraordinary when they’re really not. They will happily lead clients on that they’re independent as well, if that’s what the client thinks, which is an absolute disgrace. And don’t get me started on the charging structures and exit penalties.
Heh. That’s right. The financial adviser sector is well known for its absolute compliance with the rules. And more rules always make for better outcomes right?
look u can employ ur retard arguments as usual, if u like
and of course the rules r imperfect
but fact is managers r much better regul7ed (if still imperfectly) then they used to be, and it is way more transparent. here more, or at least better, rules have indeed produced better outcomes - hence the growth in self-management which has forced managers to really demonstr7 their value
the key is just not to rule anything out. for some, especially if u have plenty of free time and enjoy exploring products, do it urself may be well worth saving the fees
for those that don’t want to think at all, the opposite way - go fully managed, pass responsibility and expect to pay for it
for those who want to be a little involved and a “cut price” deal, go ur own way
Transparency is better now but could be better still. I wonder why advisers don't voluntarily provide more? Just look at the SJP exit charges. No one performs well enough to justify that. If you do want fully managed there are better options.
I had two bad introductory experiences with large advisory IFA shops that put me of them hugely.
The first wanted put the bulk of my money into an investment trust which was fine but he was going to take 2% in the way on the manager would charge another 1.5% every year plus performance fees. The trust has 14 investments. So instead of investing in it I bought the same holdings direct in the same proportions and made a lot more money.
The second was when they were going to try to charge over 5% on a mainstream product that I could get on a platform without paying any fees at all.
I would give my money to Nick Leeson before I gave it to SJP.
The owner of the firm I currently work at is in thrall to one of their sales reps, ...ahem I mean "partner"s. As well as boasting how his clients "only lost 7%" when the FTSE sank a year or so ago ( my IFA kept my loses to less than 3%), this individual asked me to withhold information from a mutual client who was also his new romantic partner.
People buy into the glossy brand though. A fool and their money etc etc...
This one likes to give legal advice too. The best was to a Wife who wanted to make a will leaving everything to her sister and nothing to her husband, who she had just left (divorce proceedings had not even been started). He assured her that "there is nothing he (husband) can do" to challenge it as she had left him
They cold call me occasionally with the incredibly annoying method of pretending I should know who they are so that I have a panic and try to work out which of my clients it could be. That on its own disqualifies them in my eyes, which I realise isn't entirely logical.
More logically, I don't max out ISA and pensions allowances yet, and am a fan of passive investing, so wouldn't use them regardless.
I can’t comment on SJP but it’s very lawyer to say something to the effect of , “do it yourself”. Lawyers are, without doubt, the last people to go to for financial advice. “You shouldn’t do it this way. Or that way. It may or may not work. Have a triple cocktail and see Yorkshire Woolcombers”.
I’ve used them for some insurance products - one of their “partners” has a special interest in doctor’s finances. I wouldn’t use them for investments I don’t think but then again my brother is a fund manager so I can just tap him up.
CBA doing anything else so I just follow their advice. Manage my own money? LOL as if I’m spending my very limited spare time doing that. There’s YouTube train videos to watch.
i think they are terrible and everything they have ever presented to me as an idea was terrible.
Most recently (probably about 18 months ago) when interest rates were around 1% (in terms of what you could get on savings) - they were plugging a platform that would open and operate accounts for you in all of those banks that pay around 1.5% of interest per year (so you could spread your risk protection)- or that's how they were selling it - to take away the hassle of doing it for you - and for this they would charge you 1% of your capital per year.
The way they contact you is dishonest - by pretending they know you or implying that you should know them - or that someone you know has referred you. I hope that no-one hates me that much to do that.
There is an industry joke that engineers are the worst clients as they think they know everything and can do it all themselves.
Sometimes it is better doing it yourself if you have straight forward planning requirements and not a great deal of cash. If you can tax harvest and ISA fund. If you’re happy using only index trackers and can control your cash. SJP can target all levels. A lot of firms will not be interested unless you’ve a million spare and a complicated life or are a very big deal.
Independent firms get to use institutional share classes for active funds but there is a bit of a myth that retail investors are getting a better deal when they do it themselves. They’re not. Funds for index trackers are the same of course however.
Either give them only some of your money and put the rest into "fire and forget" investment trusts or ETFs (e.g. ishares MSCI global ETF), or at least notionally track the same money in the latter. If they are not beating it after 2-3 years, accounting for fees, just sack them off.
This post probably highlights part of the problem with the industry and with DIY investing overall.
OP may well need a proper financial planner (not an investment manager/DFM and not SJP sales teams) who will be review your situation for free and tell you honestly what you do or don’t need.
Without knowing anything about you, your family, your goals, your assets or tax situation, the go-to response is automatically “just whack it in some trackers”.
It may well be what you need, of course. Who knows. The decent ones will tell you this and you’ll be on your way, no charges, no recommendations just a better idea. SJP will not do this.
Advisers and the companies they work for have to make money somehow. One told me quite simply that you either pay going in, or coming out.
Do you perfer to pay tax on the bet, or on the winnings?
3% of your £100k now or 3% of what it could be in five years?
Personally I prefer to incentivise the investment company. Invest 100% of my money going in and make as much of it as you can. Better for them, better for me.
The golden rule has to be to separate out (i) advice on overall investment / tax / estate planning, from (ii) investment management and platform administration. Online platforms offered by HL and the like make this so easy now.
de vere used to manage my mad old “spinster” aunt’s stuff - she married some ancient bloke when she was 60 and he was 90 - he left her a useful but modest amount (£700kish) and de vere managed it - don’t know how they got involved and can’t comment on performance but the adviser sent my aunt an expensive hamper every Christmas which feels and felt wrong and (rightly or wrongly) made me suspicious
I’ve never worked for them but not really any different to SJP, with a focus on product selling above everything else. They spend a lot of time selling bonds to clients, who don’t actually need them, for big juicy initial fees.
What's the point of an Ifa for choosing investments? Isn't it just easier to pick a bunch in index funds and using a fund selecting tool to pick areas you want to focus on and correctly manage your risk appetite
I don't have the or inclination to research funds and their performance and I certainly don't have the clout to set up meetings with them and question them to find out information that isn't in their published material. That's what I pay an IFA to do when I've got the money to do so.
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Yes
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unless u can be arsed to do it urself (and be comfortable that u have no-one to shout at if it goes wrong)
then no
getting financial advice is a no brainer
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Yes. SJP well known for high fees
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Ask your SJP adviser, if their own fund products are so good (as that is wheee they will steer your money), how much non-SJP advised money is in them? It’d be plenty if they were good
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I thought this was going to be a thread about Sarah Jessica Parker
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dunno how their fees compare
but it’s classic lawyers thinking they should be getting financial advice for free
ur paying for professional advice. wot do u do when a client asks u to do it for free?
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No some financial advice is very worthwhile. SJP are in my view not part of that.
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https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/sjp-finds-less-than-50-of-its-funds-offer-good-value/a1380172
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SJP fees very high. One side of my family uses a local high street IFA, another uses a more national brand. Both pay substanitally less than SJP would charge.
If you can, do it yourself. Its not that hard.
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Laz recently owned up to using SJP. Nuff sed.
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Honestly if you can't be arsed to do it yourself, which is fair, then SJP is expensive but not terrible. Have a look at the fees charged, both for managing your portfolio and the management expense ratios (MERs) in the funds and have a look.
If either of those is above 1%, you can do better.
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Me too Linda
Surprised roffers still go for likes of St James Palce I would have thought you’d all be into passive investing by now
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Last meeting I had with an SJP guy trying to get my pension a couple of years ago, he spent quite some time on how some of their in-house funds were managed by superstar fund managers, in particular Woodford. I'd been reading Tom Winnifrith's and others scribblings by then so that backfired a bit from the adviser's perspective
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thing is, none of them r perfect
they r all tied and expensive, or cannot offer the best products but cheaper plus getting kickbacks
and u can always negoti7 fees
“do it urself” is fine, but u buy an insurance policy of sorts in that it’s formal professional advice and it saves u time. plus do it urself doesn’t always get u into the best products and u take the risk of not knowing about something more suitable
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Bizarre. You seem
to associate the best products with tied which is of course completely wro g
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it depends on personal circumstances
that’s the point
if they’re not tied, they won’t be able to give u some products which might be better (true of tied, too, of course, though the big managers r incentivised to offer the biggest ranges)
so in a given scenario, yes, a cheap local guy might be able to offer wot u need
but not always. remember, there’s a reason they’re able to charge high fees
lawyers r famously bad at understanding that ppl need to make money
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Most people don't need more than a do it yourself approach. If you need more then pay a financial planner on an hourly basis. But really that should only start to be needed if your pensions and ISAs are maxed and you have a few investment properties.
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Tied products are famously almost universally shit. From bancassuers to in house managed insurance funds
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sure - then how do they make money?
the point is they suit some ppl
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How do suppliers of rip off products make money? Perhaps think about that for a moment
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Find an independent Chartered Financial Planning firm. The good ones will let you know if you’re the right fit and if it’s worth it and will be open about fees and what will be involved.
SJP are all about sales and making you think they are doing something extraordinary when they’re really not. They will happily lead clients on that they’re independent as well, if that’s what the client thinks, which is an absolute disgrace. And don’t get me started on the charging structures and exit penalties.
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What Pete said
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ur call m7
don’t assume an independent is giving u a better deal
i strongly suspect that ur in the 2005 mode - then the big managers were totally opaque and behaved disgracefully
now there r so many regulations ur basically better protected and informed than if u did it urself. and u can negoti7 the fees
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Heh. That’s right. The financial adviser sector is well known for its absolute compliance with the rules. And more rules always make for better outcomes right?
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look u can employ ur retard arguments as usual, if u like
and of course the rules r imperfect
but fact is managers r much better regul7ed (if still imperfectly) then they used to be, and it is way more transparent. here more, or at least better, rules have indeed produced better outcomes - hence the growth in self-management which has forced managers to really demonstr7 their value
the key is just not to rule anything out. for some, especially if u have plenty of free time and enjoy exploring products, do it urself may be well worth saving the fees
for those that don’t want to think at all, the opposite way - go fully managed, pass responsibility and expect to pay for it
for those who want to be a little involved and a “cut price” deal, go ur own way
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And just don’t go with SJP
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why not? they’re like the biggest of the supermarkets. plenty of good reasons (and bad ones) to go to asda
did he shag ur wife or something?
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I made nearly 50% on SJP shares from 2016 to 2018.
But I wouldn’t use their services.
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Heh. Exactly.
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oh well i’m sorry 2 hear that m7, i sed it as a joke
ur better off without her
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heh
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Transparency is better now but could be better still. I wonder why advisers don't voluntarily provide more? Just look at the SJP exit charges. No one performs well enough to justify that. If you do want fully managed there are better options.
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I had two bad introductory experiences with large advisory IFA shops that put me of them hugely.
The first wanted put the bulk of my money into an investment trust which was fine but he was going to take 2% in the way on the manager would charge another 1.5% every year plus performance fees. The trust has 14 investments. So instead of investing in it I bought the same holdings direct in the same proportions and made a lot more money.
The second was when they were going to try to charge over 5% on a mainstream product that I could get on a platform without paying any fees at all.
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I would give my money to Nick Leeson before I gave it to SJP.
The owner of the firm I currently work at is in thrall to one of their sales reps, ...ahem I mean "partner"s. As well as boasting how his clients "only lost 7%" when the FTSE sank a year or so ago ( my IFA kept my loses to less than 3%), this individual asked me to withhold information from a mutual client who was also his new romantic partner.
People buy into the glossy brand though. A fool and their money etc etc...
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SJP are a franchise and some of them are excellent and some of them are shifty as hell.
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This one likes to give legal advice too. The best was to a Wife who wanted to make a will leaving everything to her sister and nothing to her husband, who she had just left (divorce proceedings had not even been started). He assured her that "there is nothing he (husband) can do" to challenge it as she had left him
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They cold call me occasionally with the incredibly annoying method of pretending I should know who they are so that I have a panic and try to work out which of my clients it could be. That on its own disqualifies them in my eyes, which I realise isn't entirely logical.
More logically, I don't max out ISA and pensions allowances yet, and am a fan of passive investing, so wouldn't use them regardless.
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I can’t comment on SJP but it’s very lawyer to say something to the effect of , “do it yourself”. Lawyers are, without doubt, the last people to go to for financial advice. “You shouldn’t do it this way. Or that way. It may or may not work. Have a triple cocktail and see Yorkshire Woolcombers”.
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with you james, if and when i exceed the 20k limit i prob will seek advice, although I'd most probably just increase pension contributions
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Beep
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I’ve used them for some insurance products - one of their “partners” has a special interest in doctor’s finances. I wouldn’t use them for investments I don’t think but then again my brother is a fund manager so I can just tap him up.
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Wouldn’t use them. Passive funds via a pension (if you have allowance left) are best. Anyone can do it themselves - you don’t need “advice”.
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CBA doing anything else so I just follow their advice. Manage my own money? LOL as if I’m spending my very limited spare time doing that. There’s YouTube train videos to watch.
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i think they are terrible and everything they have ever presented to me as an idea was terrible.
Most recently (probably about 18 months ago) when interest rates were around 1% (in terms of what you could get on savings) - they were plugging a platform that would open and operate accounts for you in all of those banks that pay around 1.5% of interest per year (so you could spread your risk protection)- or that's how they were selling it - to take away the hassle of doing it for you - and for this they would charge you 1% of your capital per year.
The way they contact you is dishonest - by pretending they know you or implying that you should know them - or that someone you know has referred you. I hope that no-one hates me that much to do that.
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prolif bump
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There is an industry joke that engineers are the worst clients as they think they know everything and can do it all themselves.
Sometimes it is better doing it yourself if you have straight forward planning requirements and not a great deal of cash. If you can tax harvest and ISA fund. If you’re happy using only index trackers and can control your cash. SJP can target all levels. A lot of firms will not be interested unless you’ve a million spare and a complicated life or are a very big deal.
Independent firms get to use institutional share classes for active funds but there is a bit of a myth that retail investors are getting a better deal when they do it themselves. They’re not. Funds for index trackers are the same of course however.
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Either give them only some of your money and put the rest into "fire and forget" investment trusts or ETFs (e.g. ishares MSCI global ETF), or at least notionally track the same money in the latter. If they are not beating it after 2-3 years, accounting for fees, just sack them off.
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This post probably highlights part of the problem with the industry and with DIY investing overall.
OP may well need a proper financial planner (not an investment manager/DFM and not SJP sales teams) who will be review your situation for free and tell you honestly what you do or don’t need.
Without knowing anything about you, your family, your goals, your assets or tax situation, the go-to response is automatically “just whack it in some trackers”.
It may well be what you need, of course. Who knows. The decent ones will tell you this and you’ll be on your way, no charges, no recommendations just a better idea. SJP will not do this.
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Banana, that’s great advice but SJP levy substantial exit fees (which I think run up to year six?)
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Advisers and the companies they work for have to make money somehow. One told me quite simply that you either pay going in, or coming out.
Do you perfer to pay tax on the bet, or on the winnings?
3% of your £100k now or 3% of what it could be in five years?
Personally I prefer to incentivise the investment company. Invest 100% of my money going in and make as much of it as you can. Better for them, better for me.
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beep
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The golden rule has to be to separate out (i) advice on overall investment / tax / estate planning, from (ii) investment management and platform administration. Online platforms offered by HL and the like make this so easy now.
I am not a fan of SJP.
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3% now, 0.5% for the rest of my life while I hold the asset and 3% plus a fixed transfer fee when I want to go to a new shop please
(no idea if SJP charge at these rates but another house did put a proposal to me once on this basis)
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This is worth reading on charges:
https://www.ft.com/content/4cf4307e-eefb-11dd-bbb5-0000779fd2ac
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My understanding is they are not really financial advisers
They just sell a set of standard products
so in short...
Yes
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How about Chase De Vere? Any experiences?
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would you be so kind as to copy and paste FT article - I don’t have a subscription. many thanks.
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de vere used to manage my mad old “spinster” aunt’s stuff - she married some ancient bloke when she was 60 and he was 90 - he left her a useful but modest amount (£700kish) and de vere managed it - don’t know how they got involved and can’t comment on performance but the adviser sent my aunt an expensive hamper every Christmas which feels and felt wrong and (rightly or wrongly) made me suspicious
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I’ve never worked for them but not really any different to SJP, with a focus on product selling above everything else. They spend a lot of time selling bonds to clients, who don’t actually need them, for big juicy initial fees.
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Bullace, it was republished in the FT Guide to Investing, here:
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/_/CcqMg0aGdL0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=P…
This book is a very good read, by the way,
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The rest is on the next page...
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/_/CcqMg0aGdL0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=P…
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What about Brexit?
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Thanks playft- appreciated
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What's the point of an Ifa for choosing investments? Isn't it just easier to pick a bunch in index funds and using a fund selecting tool to pick areas you want to focus on and correctly manage your risk appetite
What value does an IfA add
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I also thought that this might be a juicy Sex and the City thread......
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Until you get to planning level, they are for lazy people who can't be bothered to watch a few YouTube videos on the subject.
Honestly if you are that disinterested in your own net worth or incapable of understanding it then you should probably just lump it all in BTL.
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beep
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I don't have the or inclination to research funds and their performance and I certainly don't have the clout to set up meetings with them and question them to find out information that isn't in their published material. That's what I pay an IFA to do when I've got the money to do so.
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