All ETFs are subject to management fees and expenses; refer to each ETF's prospectus for more information. Vanguard LifeStrategy, assuming you buy on Vanguard’s own platform. However, the Nutmeg product offers much more flexibility. One financial advisor I know always says the best time to invest is when you have the money – ie don’t try and time the market. The zero-fee trading platforms Freetrade and Trading212 are great to use to construct your own ETF portfolio without these pesky fees, but the range of choice is limited. I would like to open an investment ISA for growth for at least 10 years. I love the theory of robo advisers, offering slick websites and managing your money for relatively low fees. Most investments require you to make all your own investment decisions and to take responsibility for your own portfolio. Vanguard isn’t a robo adviser, but I reckon the LifeStrategy funds offer a similar low cost one-stop-shop for new investors. Nutmeg is simplest for 2 reasons: the whole package is in one place, i.e. Nutmeg is one of the major robo-investing platforms, and the one we’d go to first due to it’s ease of use, range, past record and that you can save yourself the first 6 months of fees when you sign up through our referral link. While Vanguard has done even better, with historical average annual returns of 10.0% since inception in 2011! We invest for the long term, so would and have chosen the 100% Equity LifeStrategy fund. Fees have ticked down slightly. Back then, I was looking at investment growth with Vanguard of £203 (20%), with Wealthify of £187 (18%) and with Nutmeg, from the bigger investment, of £368 (13.5%). An ISA. New Nutmeg customers: £110 via Quidco or £105 via TopCashback. If you do want to choose between investment websites, bear in mind that this comparison is only over two years, which is a really short time when investing. That’s a better deal than using my referral link, where I get £100 but you only get 6 months without Nutmeg fees. I accept that my email will be processed by FeedBurner and their privacy policy. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Up until about a month ago, everything was ticking over nicely during the second year. ( Log Out / There’s no questionnaire to guide your choice. Account service fees … Fineco vs Degiro: Which is the Better Platform in 2020? Is My Money Safe With Hargreaves Lansdown? Here are the screen grabs from my accounts, showing how they’ve done over two years. So if you’re lucky enough to have spare money to set aside for several years, and brave enough to cope with plummeting stock markets, here’s an update on my own rollercoaster experience over the last two years. Back in October 2014 I invested in a balanced Nutmeg Equities, Guilts, and Bonds ISA and exactly the same at the same time in the Vanguard Lifestyle 80% Equities 20% Bonds ISA via Hargreaves Landesdown. http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/leave-it-to-an-expert, https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/finance/calculators/compoundinterestcalculator.php. Bonds are about as close as you can get to cash savings whilst still being a risk-bearing investment. Comparing the highest risk options from each provider, Nutmeg 10 vs LifeStrategy 100% Equity, we see two excellent investment options. Disclaimer, Look After My Bills vs Switchcraft: Best Auto Switch…, Fidelity vs Vanguard UK: Best Platform for UK…. That’s down £465 of my own money, but it’s actually more painful than that. Than what? Vanguard Investor UK review - is it the best in the market. Here are the stark results after two years: Note: the percentage growth is time weighted return. Posting an update on my robo adviser investments is tricky when one of them closes down. Required fields are marked *. The £200 Nutmeg cashback was credited in May 2019 (thank you) and my £100-a-month direct debits continued. All ETF sales are subject to a securities transaction fee. 5: Cautious, Tentative, Confident, Ambitious, Adventurous, 5: LifeStrategy 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%, 1% fully managed up to £100,000 (0.68% for fixed allocation), 5: Isa, General Investment Account, Junior Isa, Lisa, Pension, 4: Isa, General Investment Account, Junior Isa, Pension, 4: Isa, General Account, Junior Isa, Pension, £100 from Moola, added to my account within a week, £50 from Wealthify, supposedly after six months, in practice (after prodding) added after 10 months on 29 January 2019, £200 from Nutmeg, supposedly after thirteen months, in practice (after prodding) added a month later on 16 May 2019. Both Vanguard LifeStrategy and Nutmeg build their portfolios from a base of ETFs and index tracking funds, of both equities and bonds, so are both ultra-diversified and ultra-cheap. The material on the Money to the Masses website, 80-20 Investor, Damien’s Money MOT, associated pages, channels, accounts and any other correspondence are for general information only and do not constitute investment, tax, legal or other form of advice. By the end of the first year, I’d invested £5,200 across four different companies, including the £100 a month payments to Nutmeg. But deciding which is best for you is part of the problem of knowing what to invest in now to bring the results you want in the future. The only reason my Wealthify balance wasn’t less than I’d paid in was because the losses hadn’t entirely eaten away my original £50 cashback and a more recent £50 refer-a-friend bonus. NB: Confusingly, Vanguard is now not only a provider of funds, but also a platform (on which you can only invest in its own funds). The return depends on the stocks invested in; an ISA is just a type of account that holds them; Nutmeg is just a company that provides accounts that hold them. Sometimes it might just go implied though. Vanguard LifeStrategy – the most popular fund out there – versus Nutmeg, the genius robo-investing all-in-one portfolio solution. If you are still interested in cash back, here’s what’s available in April 2020. Tick ‘I have daily data’ if you want to compare specific dates rather than months. Should You Overpay Your Mortgage or Invest? This is the digital equivalent of paying an expert financial advisor to interview you and construct a portfolio of shares and bonds on your behalf – except that rather than costing the earth, it’s ridiculously cheap, with fees being either initially free, or around than half of 1 percent of your pot per year. Both funds average returns are since inception, so slightly different time periods, but Vanguard on the face of it wins the best historical returns test – but it’s so close as to not make much difference for future expected performance. Like most sites, Money Unshackled uses cookies - if you continue to browse our site, you are accepting our use of these tools, but you can modify your browser settings so as not to accept cookies. As a comparison, I also put £1,000 in a Vanguard LifeStrategy fund. Puzzling over where to invest your money for the best results, whether Vanguard LifeStrategy or a robo adviser like Nutmeg or Wealthify? If you want to go Fully Managed the fee increases to 0.75%. But even the LifeStrategy funds come in multiple forms; accumulating, distributing and at various equity levels – and a beginner and experienced investor alike might want a more tailored product without having to do the research. By Damien Fahy. You need to understand the difference/definitions of three things: Platforms/Providers (Vanguard, Hargreaves, Nutmeg, AJ Bell, Barclays etc), Investments (Equities, Bonds, ETFs, Funds). Suggest any comparison should stick with the time-weighted returns (ie the percentages), which strip out the affect of any withdrawals or subsequent contributions. Of course you don't know if you will get a better rate of growth with anyone, but there's an industry out there saying invest with us and we will grow your money. Sweet. Each offer had different small print about how much to invest and for how long. However, the Nutmeg product offers much more flexibility. Archived. Again, than what? It’d be great to analyse it now (June) and see how their response to the COVID-19 shock was. The website is less fancy. Your email address will not be published. Is Hargreaves Lansdown Good for Beginners? 19. There are 5 versions of the LifeStrategy fund in the UK. Nutmeg will actively rebalance and I believe Vanguard do something similar but don’t offer anywhere near the level of control that Nutmeg do (which may not be a bad thing!). ( Log Out / That’s why Nutmeg shows such large changes in pounds – they are generated from a much bigger amount of money. That just means it shows how much the investments actually grew, regardless of any cash added or withdrawn, in my case the cashback and referral bonus from Wealthify, and the cashback and extra £100 a month paid into Nutmeg. Than what? As I was investing for a good 10 years, I chose racy options. Now – over to you. How do these robo adviser results compare to other wealth managers? Both Vanguard and Hargreaves Lansdown are investment platforms offering ISAs, ETFs, stocks and shares, and SIPPs. I need to look at my own figures a little more carefully, so I’m not going to comment on them just yet. Prophetically, I did warn in my post explaining ‘what are robo advisers?‘ that some were bound to disappear: So one down, two robo advisers to go, and I can only bring you two year results for my Nutmeg and Wealthify accounts compared to Vanguard. I opened a Nutmeg ISA on the recommendation of a money saving website, and a supposed 9 month % fees offer which did not materialise. If you’d invested £10,000 back then you’d have more than doubled your money by now. Editors note: If you like the sound of Nutmeg, feel free to get your platform fees cancelled for the first 6 months when you open your account via our referral link on the Offers Page. A more cautious approach should fall less in troubled times. The good news is that the losses only exist on screen. investment growth, £1,000 contribution, Nutmeg: -£619 & -15.12% investment growth, £3,600 contributions & cashback, Wealthify: -£91.37 & -8.48% investment growth, £1,100 contributions & cashback. Help me help more people by sharing the site with your family, friends and colleagues. Your email address will not be published. I’m intending to publish a new post showing three year performance, fingers crossed it’s better than March 2020… The companies have been busy since last year’s comparison table. Hi Ramon – You said it, March and April were definitely volatile! So in the two short months since, coronavirus has scorched through more than £1,500 in investment growth, cashback, a couple of Nutmeg monthly payments and a Wealthify referral bonus. Have typically lower return? My Nutmeg balance was less than the money I’d paid in. 40 min Read 07 Aug 2020. That’s why it’s vital to only invest money you can leave untouched for at least five years and ideally longer, so you can hang tight until markets pick up again. So it looks like Vanguard did better than average (-5.41%), Wealthify was at the better end of the range (-8.48%), and Nutmeg did worse than average (-15.12%). Yeah, that. If your objective is to reduce fees, both are very cheap and therefore both are great choices, and Nutmeg has no fees whatsoever for the first 6 months when you use the link on the Offers Page. 07503666, with a … I think both of those services offer an isa wrapper. The sidebar has some good resources and book recommendation. *Minimum investments may vary for other products. What's best for a situation like mine? – coronavirus hit. I checked my other accounts at the same time, which was pretty much the peak of the market. Nutmeg has slashed minimum investments and now offers a Junior Isa. I found the communications from Nutmeg were patronising, and … When I checked my balances after two years, on 21 March 2020, the picture was not pretty. Apps That Pay You To Walk: Can You Really Get Paid To Walk? So it looks like Vanguard did better than average (-5.41%), Wealthify was at the better end of the range (-8.48%), and Nutmeg did worse than average (-15.12%) Compare your own investments here, then go to the ‘QuickCheck’ menu and select ‘Performance’, click ‘£’ … If you are unsure about any investments or financial issues, please contact a financial adviser.