One of the best ways to invest your money is to choose solid investments and then leave them alone, to let time do its work.
Here’s Moneycube’s 5-point plan for Irish investors who want to ‘buy and forget’.
1. Keep it simple: use investment funds
For most people, investing is not about researching hundreds of companies and crunching numbers. You can simply invest in funds which do this work for you.
Funds are a great way to get exposure to many different assets in one go. They’re easy to access and don’t require you to monitor them constantly.
2. Make it diverse
Unless you want to be a hands-on investor, it’s best to build diversity into your portfolio from the start.
No-one knows which industries or parts of the globe will perform best in the coming years. So taking slice of each of them is a great approach for the ‘buy and forget’ investor.
Multi-asset funds are ideal for this. Typically they are made up of a selection of global companies, government bonds, commodities and perhaps some cash.
That means you can gain a highly diversified portfolio in a single fund.
(Here and here are a couple of examples of multi-asset funds available to Irish investors. As you’ll see, they offer a huge spread of different investments within a single fund).
3. Choose the low-cost option
Holding on to your investments for the long term is a great way to avoid unnecessary dealing and advice costs.
You can increase your savings by making sure you choose an investment where the costs are clearly laid out, and management charges aren’t making excessive inroads into your investment returns. (Moneycube believes fees should be as transparent as possible).
4. Keep contributing
Once you’ve invested your lump sum, there’s one more thing to consider before you forget about your money for a while.
Now’s the time to set up a monthly direct debit. A steady drip-feed of money into your investment as a great habit to get into.
5. Review and rebalance
It’s unlikely you’ll want to ignore your investment completely! It’s wise to check in online every six months or so on the progress of your investments towards your goals.
Your investment aims may have changed, and the funds you are invested in will too. It may be time to rebalance so that the funds you’re in are right for your purposes.
At Moneycube, we continue to monitor the performance of your investments and help you adjust them as required.
If you’re looking for a straight-forward solution to invest your money, a ‘buy and forget’ approach could serve you well.
Get started with Moneycube today and we can recommend a long-term fund investment for you.
