My friend came over for lunch and gave me a lovely present💕
A beautiful hand soap & lotion set from Bamford.
I believe Bamford is owned by the organic farm Daylesford. I love the Daylesford cafe in Notting Hill😀
My policy is to start using lovely things as soon as possible! so I put them in the cloakroom – makes my cloakroom look 100 times nicer and more stylish✨
Something about putting a hand soap & the matching lotion set really improves the look. At least for the bathroom that the guests can use, it is worth spending the money to pick a nice set.
I’m looking into buying ETFs in my ISA account. Today, I ended up spending hours looking at the fee structures… why is it so complicated?? It feels like the fund managers don’t want us to understand how much fee we actually pay in total as this could really put us off from investing 😅
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From what I have seen, there are ongoing cost, transaction cost, account fee, dealing charge etc. What are they and how do we know how much we pay in total?
If you don’t choose the right product, you could easily pay 1% (or more) cost for investing, and this cost is taken annually (yes, not one off. Annual! EVERY year!!!)
So, if you are new to buying ETFs in your ISA account (or if you have never thought about how much fee you are paying), you really need to look into this.
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I’m not a financial advisor. Although I was an analyst for a fund manager (long time ago), I never thought about how much the investors are paying to buy my company’s funds. So I’m a beginner & very new to this ETF investment.
But as a beginner, I’m going to look into all the information necessary to start investing in ETFs using my ISA account, and I would like to share this experience with you.
I’m not giving any advice. This is my personal opinion as a private investor.
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So fees, yes fees!!
Who offers the lowest fees??? Very hard to determine.
From what I have seen, these companies offer ETFs with very competitive fees.
Lyxor
Vanguard
iShares
For example, some of Lyxor’s ETFs management fees are as low as 0.04%/annum. Sounds very competitive💕
But the problem is, this is not the only fee that we pay because we can’t buy Lyxor’s ETF directly from them. We need to purchase them through a broker or a fund manager and they charge fees too!
So it gets very hard to understand how much we actually pay in total💦
This is getting a bit too long, so I’m going to stop here today. I’ll talk more about the fees next time. This is a big part of making an investment decision & having a full understanding of it is crucial.
Whatever it is, it is interesting to research and learn about new things.
I’m thinking of putting some money back into the market 💰, and I’m trying to figure out where??
We bought a family home last year and spent a lot of our savings for that💦 We obviously need a bit of saving for rainy day, so what is left over isn’t much really…. & the money is in cash ISA at the moment.
But now the house is bought & the renovation is done, I really want to start investing again. Doesn’t really matter how small the amount is. You always need to start somewhere‼️
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My options are
Buy some UK index funds
Buy some Foreign index funds
Buy some foreign currency
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If I were to invest in shares, I only look at index funds, NOT active funds.
I’m a big fan of the index funds 💕 because
Fees are lower than active funds (quite a lot lower sometimes)
It is hard for a fund manager to keep beating the market (i.e perform better than the index funds)
You know exactly how your funds are performing because it just tracks the market (less monitoring required)
I used to be an analyst for a pension fund management company before I became a mum (oh gosh, so long ago…..) The most important thing that I learnt from that experience was that it was not worth paying a higher fee for an actively managed fund 😅 Of course, there are some exceptions. I’m just talking on average over median – long term. Plus I don’t know much about the hedge funds.
I saw how difficult it was for a fund manager to keep beating the market. If it was that easy, we would all be billionaires 😉
Even if you have a good performing fund manager for your active funds, there is no guarantee that he/she will keep managing this fund. At least with an index fund, you don’t need to worry who is managing it.
What I don’t understand is why some of the index funds fees are still high. It can all be done by a machine, so shouldn’t they be like 0.1% or less ???
Anyway, I will search for a low fee index funds in ISA.
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I also need to look into how to buy foreign currencies without investing in stocks/bonds/ commodities etc. What do you do if you just want to hold foreign currency in ISA? Is that possible? This is definitely a possibility as I’m not sure if I want to go into the stock market at the moment, but would like a FX exposure.
Skirt leggings are the answer for my exercise outfit as they look cute & cover the bum nicely as well 😀
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I exercise twice a week. I swim once & do a ballet (barre) exercise once. This outfit is great for my ballet exercise.
I used to wear a regular sports leggings, but I felt like hiding my bum a bit, so I bought these online. They are Adidas tennis range.
Some skirt leggings are not suitable for ballet movements as they make the skirt too tight. This one is great. They don’t restrict any movement, but still cover what I want to cover😉
Tops are what I already had at home. Both from UNIQLO. The strong pink colour of the camisole bra top is a nice contrast with the black. My trainers happened to have a bit of this pink too, so they match nicely.
This is the only set of the gym clothes that I own. Since I only exercise twice a week, this is enough for me. My policy is not to buy things unnecessarily.
Exercise becomes more fun when you are wearing something you like!
So can I?? I’m in my late 40s… Can I get away with it???
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I will not be able to wear it in few years time, so if I want to, I have to wear it now!!
So I tried.
I guess, I shouldn’t expose too much so tights & long boots are must.
Maybe OK… Better than I expected, I think.
But going up & down the stairs at the tube station, I might want to wear something on top, so I tried this.
This is actually pretty good. You can tell that it’s a mini skirt from the front, but the back is not too obvious
This long cardigan from Banana Republic is so useful. Makes me look taller, and I really love the lean effect that it can give. I I bought it either last year. or the year before.
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Anyway, my friend gave me a nice compliment. It gave me a ✨ feeling.
This was an another item from Shein UK. Only £8.99. How could I resist?
Of course, I can’t wear it like how the model is wearing as it will not look right on me. But it doesn’t really matter. If you want to wear something, just wear it!! Just need to be a bit creative with it. So uplifting to wear something you like😀
It’s been 3 days, so I want to give you an update!
I have been putting Casoda on my SB every morning & evening after the shower. I found the normal plasters too big, so I started using these small ones.
I found making Casoda very easy. Putting it on & plastering it takes less than one minute – not as fiddly as I expected.
After 3 days, it seem to be getting a bit drier & itchy.
I’m not sure whether that’s what is supposed to happen, but having a small plaster on helps me not to scratch the part, so good.
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I will keep going for 2-3 weeks to see what happens.
Samurai Hinata's Lifestyle Blog 