Why invest in Investment Bonds, when you are obviously a Tax Payer. These funds incur a tax charge and advisor commission! You could probably invested in teh same funds though Co-funds at a fraction of the cost, and only face a capital gains tax liability!

If you still have earned income other than you final salary scheme you could make contributions to a personal pension, gaining valuable tax Relief.

You could maximise your ISA's both cash and stocks & shares. Look for protected products, to ensure your money is safe.

Employ an Indepent Financial Adviser who performs proper financial planning. They will not worry if you buy products form them or not, but will be able to show you what you need to do and what products are available. Expect to pay a fee for this service.

Thank you for your understanding response.

I am stunned by your reply, unless you are an advisor.

I was merely asking questions on an 'ask a question' forum to gain some general wide ranging views on the topic!

Spending a lot of money on proffessional advice has not provided value for money to me so far!

Acting on my own initiative has proved more fruitful, which is what I am doing here.

Get an account with something like Hargreaves Lansdown and study their website for a few weeks, you will soon learn which funds are popular for growth or income and be able to see their recommendations as well as track records. Then do it yourself and then move into shares or ETFs or whatever. I am in the same situation with a good final salary pension and I currently stash away quite a lot of spare cash into Income generating funds (with income re-invested) in ISAs for me and the wife.

I am not sure that putting money into a pension in this situation is worthwhile even for allowing for the tax relief on the way in (since you pay tax on the way out). There used to be a good reason for using the tax relief if you were a higher rate tax payer during your working life and didn't expect to have pension earnings that high rate later on. However it's worth remembering that basic rate tax hasn't always been 20% (used to be over 30%) so you are also gambling on future government policy.

To Stormdog. Ref your rant. Professional qualified advice given freely? I know of no other profession that works for nothing. To expect to get good quality professional advice for free is just nonsense. To believe it is available is deluded. May I politely remind you that by taking properly qualified regulated advice Mr Jefferies gets the added protection of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme if the firm that advises gets declared in default and the Financial Ombudsman Service which can make compensation rulings in cases where a firm is deemed to have given inappropritae / unsuitable advice. Or maybe you expect do-it-yourself advice to be compensated too?

Therefore if a member of the public, whoever they are, decides to self advise, they should not have recourse to investor protection nor should they expect to receive free advice from non-regulated individuals whish is in fact against the law.

Any Tom, Dick or Harry can pick up certain information on the web but it is the wrinkles that are so important, or pending legislation changes or fund manager departures / takeovers etc that make the difference bettween properly informed advice and buying a Money Week once a month in Sainsbury's when you do the Sunday shop.

My point is simple. Some people expect the earth and pay nothing for it.

No apology necessary. I continue to me amazed at the naiivetty of people who genuinely think they would get good quality advice on a forum like this. Please!

The problem is of course getting good quality advice even when paying for it. The fact that someone is a qualified professional doesn't mean that the advice they give is any good at all. You only have to look at the recent investment performance of many professional companies to see that.

The charges made by investment management companies are not related to their performance. Perhaps if they mirrored the gains and losses made by the client it would improve matters.

Mr. Johnstone, Sir,

I am in fact questioning the alleged competence of the majority of people whose job it is is to offer financial advice and charge for it

In my near sixty years of involvement in financial markets it is patent that the best method is to do your own research and then when getting utterly stuck be prepared to pay through the nose for the best advice that is available.

People who have money, and are not just plain incompetent, should take full responsibility for their finances to themselves by getting involved and not relying solely upon 'professional' advisers who have 'all of the power and none of the responsibility'.

Of course I am not saying that people should just trawl the web and so on, oh please Sir!
Are you so threatened that you now have to become silly?

When dealing with matters financial, all information is welcome, no matter the source, this also includes the views of so named experts who are in the main middle of the road employees, the most skilled having left to make money on their own accounts.

I quite agree that professionals have some uses, however to consider them to be any more competent than anyone else is not necessarily borne out by recent experience as is clearly evidenced by the dire state of our economy.

Please understand well, whilst you are now talking about out and out fraud, I was not, except in the case of the Sarth London car dealer.

If one of your cherished professionals gives incompetent advice then all can be lost and the victim has effectively had all his money ripped from him, there is nothing left.
If the car dealer sells you a dressed up dud then the outcome is the same, except that the victim is left with a heap of scrap metal that today has value.

So in short:

Do your own research.
Be sceptical and investigate everything that soi-disant 'professionals' want you to do or buy into.
Always your own decisions, at least then if it goes wrong it is your own fault and then stand tough!

I fear for people like our Mr Jefferies, from what he writes he hasn't got much of a chance. If he trusts his financial affairs to someone else he will be like the old Lloyd's members who just paid over their money to agents in trusting that the income would pay the school fees and ended up losing their houses and sometimes their lives. However Mr Jefferies states that he wishes to go his own way, yet he lacks knowledge, he may well end up as a sitting duck, I hope not.

Finally.

In fact I think that know you.

I totally and utterly understand where you are coming from and I agree with some of that which you have written.

Despite this I feel you have not as yet demonstrated sufficient vision to enable your arguments to really stand up and win through in today's slightly topsy-turvy world of finance.

Good luck to you though.

Dear Keith,
Like you, I have become disillusioned with "Independant" financial advice over the years and am self investing. I have tried to maximise my ISA's for both myself and spouse and am also deal directly in Stocks and Shares. I have tried to diversfy my ISA's far and wide and my share portfolio is a mixture of high yielding,growth stocks and some speculative.
Hargreave Lansdown are a good company to put your ISA.s into, as they provide a reduced charging system which allows more of your investment to stay within your fund and not your IFA's account.
David Johnstone is correct in saying there is no such thing as free advice, so I pay for a share analysis service up-front.
There are other websites you can use apart from Citywire, which although very good, is populated with a lot of afore-mentioned IFA's .
A good initial point to start would be to join the Motley Fool, which is primarily similar minded people. Look at their forums but take share tips with a pinch of salt.
Trustnet is also a good resource for researching Funds and you can monitor all your funds within their website
I would not like to advise you what to invest in for such a short time frame, but I'm sure there will be some ideas on the "Fool".
Finally, I would like to say that it whilst you may not be able to maximise your returns by going it alone, you do have the satisfaction of making your own decisions, you know where to point the finger for any mistakes made,and you can act far quicker to minimise your errors.
I hope this has been of some help,
Yours Sincerely,
Rick Yorston

Thank you stormdog, rick Y and everyone for their positive support and helpful answers.

Thank you Mr Johnstone..............light the blue touch and retire to a safe distance.

Your replies have have provoked some useful viewpoints and entertaining discussion, exactly as intended.