I am not totally sure about my financial advisor anymore and if the right choices have been made with switching my bonds/shares etc and was getting to more of the thinking to go it alone.
All I have to do is write to Sterling and Skandia and say I no longer wish to be managed by the financial advisor and apparently that's fine but I will then need to look at doing switches on shares (not everyday) so that my money is making money and more importantly that I am in control.

Does anyone have experience of this and is it fairly easy to grasp? I don't have any experience of this and am always baffled when he comes with colour pie charts, though I don't think these show me much, it just looks impressive from him.

> I don't have any experience of this

It might be a good idea to find out more about managing your portfolio before sacking your FA :) :) I have friends who really enjoy managing their finances, but, then again, I am far too cautious to manage my own investments (I would have all my money sitting in a building society if it was left to me) so rely on my OH and a FA to make most of the decisions :)

The up side of managing your money is that, if you are successful, you have saved yourself a lot of fees. If you aren't any good at it, then you could lose a lot of money :) :) For me, there are other things I'd rather do than read the FT etc :) :)

It's up to you, but I'd find out a lot more about what is necessary and if you've got a good understanding of the world of investments first :) :)

Thanks, it is the fees they take, which I know they have to earn but he hasn't been upfront about them or about fees if you take your money out early.
Would rather just plod along in high interest building society account or try and do myself.

>  plod along in high interest building society account

Are there any ?? :) :) :) It just depends whether you may need the money at short notice or if you can leave the money invested for quite a while. Building societies etc are giving such low interest that inflation is often higher. Stock market, property etc may give a much better gain, but you can guarantee that if you need the money at short notice, the value of the investment will be at that moment when it is low :) :)

    plod along in high interest building society account

Are there any ?? :-) :-) :-)

Definitely not! Highest I found was 1 % and if you wanted something more, like up to 3, you have to keep switching.

> Highest I found was 1 %

Depends how much you can put in to open the account. If you have £500, you can get 1.76% easy access with National Savings. Of course, any spare cash should be put first into that years ISA and the best rate I've found is 2.3%. If you have any debts, such as credit cards etc, these should be paid off before saving ...........