£5k to Invest in Five Separate Pots

[CzechItOut]

I have used up my ISA allowance for this year, but still have £5k in a very poorly performing Savings account.

I'd like to split it into five diverse £1k pots. I'm thinking:

Premium Bonds
Funding Circle/RateSetter
A Gold ETF
An FTSE 100 Tracker
And something else

I'm not sure what would be the best platform for the Gold ETF and Tracker.

What could my fifth pot be, medium to high risk is fine?

Does anyone have any other advice?

Cheers!

[ringram]

Yeah, figure out what risk you are willing to take and what your goals are.
Some of your suggestions IMO are no good.
Premium bonds on average will lose you over 1% PA at current inflation rates.
And gold will pay you no income.
Is that what you want?
If your goal is to destroy capital then your plan is good

[ringram]

Actually that is a bit harsh, but you get the point

[CzechItOut]

I'm not sure what my goal is, other than to get my money out of a poorly performing 2% savings account and into something a little more interesting?

[VinceFox]

I'd be interested to hear ideas on this too. 5k sat in a current account atm, isa entitlements used up.

[hornet]

CzechItOut said:

I'm not sure what my goal is, other than to get my money out of a poorly performing 2% savings account and into something a little more interesting?

First question would be do you have a mortgage you can overpay or any other debts you could clear? I'm making mortgage overpayment my first priority after taking my cash ISA allowance. After that, I'm drip feeding a shares ISA, primarily into a Vanguard LifeStrategy fund, as it seems to offer the easiest way to get diversification. Used to fret about individual funds and shares, but just don't have the time to dedicate to it, so shifted my goals. Now just looking to keep it simple and aim to beat cash. Not overly exciting, but works for me.

On the subject of gold, I have a small amount in precious metal ETFs, but they are not for the nervous, as seen recently. Quite often seem to make entirely counter-intuitive moves, so probably best avoided if you're prone to constantly checking prices and worrying.

Found Moneyvator a useful resource on the passive investment front. They also mention the Vanguard funds, but I'd point out I owned mine before I found that website. Not trying to promote anything!

[ringram]

Yep thats a good website.
They wont tell you to buy gold or use premium bonds though..
Their bent is value and dividend investing with good shares and perhaps in low cost trackers.
This has lot going for it.

[hornet]

ringram said:

Yep thats a good website.
They wont tell you to buy gold or use premium bonds though..
Their bent is value and dividend investing with good shares and perhaps in low cost trackers.
This has lot going for it.

I found this a useful read as well :-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Own-The-World-Andrew-Craig...

Author does have precious metal leanings and has popped up on the podcast circuit, but there's a decent amount of advice about diversification using funds, with a similar "own as few and as cheaply as possible" theme to Moneyvator. Also goes into simple ratio analysis (EPS, P/E etc) and further technical analysis for those keen to be more active. Found it a useful read from a "set and forget" viewpoint. Some of the suggestions for further reading feel a little bit agenda driven, but there's enough good core information for it to be useful.

[BoRED S2upid]

How about a grand invested in a bond. I saw one the other day with the jockey club or some racecourse owner raising funds I can't remember but it was 5% income and some perks like discounted race tickets which seems to me more fun than watchignt he price of gold fluctuate and not know when to get out.