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Join s of MoneySavers in the Forum's many discussion boards. For all the latest deals, guides and loopholes - join the 12m who get it. Amy and Eesha Edited by Johanna. This is the first incarnation of this guide. Thanks to Gavin Haynes from Whitechurch Securities for fact-checking the guide. The best cash ISAs out there. If you're looking to transfer old cash ISAs. For everything you need to know about ISAs. Help to Buy ISA: All the info on the newly announced ISAs for unders.

You can also choose to put the whole amount into a cash ISA. This could be in things such as:. If this is your first experience of investing, it'll be worth reading our beginners' guide to investing to get a broader idea of what's involved.

The fund's theme could be anything from geography European, Japanese, emerging markets , industry green companies, utility firms, industrial businesses , types of investment shares, corporate bonds, gilts , to the size of the company.

The combination gives you the risk factor. If the fund focuses on "fledgling biotech companies in emerging markets", all the elements involve a high degree of uncertainty. So if it goes well you could be in for massive gains, and if it goes badly, massive losses.

Alternatively, it could be a FTSE tracker, where the fund simply invests in the UK's biggest companies, and therefore is much more mainstream.

While there can still be substantial ups and downs, the fluctuations are likely to be smaller. It's very important you understand what the tax breaks are and whether they really matter to you before you decide to use your ISA allowance for investing.

You might then have to pay tax on that. There are two ways you make money from investing. One is when the shares increase in value and then you reap a nice little profit when you sell them. The other is when they pay dividends. Dividends are a bit like interest on a savings account. If a company makes a profit, it gives some of it back to you - it could be on a regular basis or as a one-off.

Any dividends received above this allowance will be taxed - at 7. If you're a higher or additional-rate taxpayer who receives taxable dividend income, then you must inform HMRC. In return, it'll have to pay you interest. You're taking the risk that it won't give you the money back, so it isn't risk-free. But the good news is If you've got corporate bonds, or bond funds within an ISA that pays out interest, you don't have to pay any tax on it.

Bear in mind that this allowance covers your normal savings interest in a bank too as well as other forms of interest. As with the dividend allowance, you'll owe tax on any interest earned above its limit. If you have other capital gains, such as you had a buy-to-let property and you've sold it, then if it made a profit, you could have used up your CGT allowance that tax year.

The exact amount of tax you pay depends on your taxable income. It's really not a question we can answer - it all depends on your personal circumstances and the amount of risk you're willing to take. But as a rule of thumb, you should invest for at least five years.

This allows enough time to ride out any bumps in the market that might see you make a loss on your money. As such, if you're looking to use your money within the next couple of years, you should probably stick to cash savings such as a cash ISA.

See the Top Savings and Top Cash ISA guide for more. Over the long run, historically stocks and shares have outperformed money in savings accounts. But that's no guarantee they'll do so in the future. It depends whether you gain from the tax breaks above and if you're willing to risk your money investing. First you need to pick which provider to buy your ISA from, then you need to decide what investments to put in it.

It's like buying bread in a supermarket. You first need to pick where you want to buy the bread from decide which platform to use , then choose what bread you want to buy from there your funds. You'll be charged both for using the platform and buying the funds. To stretch the analogy somewhat, imagine each supermarket charges a different price for its shopping bags. Some supermarket bags are cheaper than others, but the ones that have the most expensive bags may be the ones that sell the bread the cheapest.

So it's a combination of the two factors that needs to be taken into consideration. Note that while the platform fee is charged by the platform you choose, the company running the funds will be charging you for the funds. This may be useful for people coming up to retirement who don't want to take a risk with their money.

Never just withdraw the money, you'll lose all the tax-free benefits.

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Once you've filled out any forms, the transfer may take a few weeks. It's tempting to try to time the market, but it's almost impossible and even the most experienced investors get it wrong.

By pulling out of the market as soon as a share dips or trying to second-guess when a share will reach its peak, you could lose out on sharp recoveries or see the price go down again. Instead, you should invest on a regular basis - in investment lingo this is called 'drip-feeding' - to smooth out any ups and downs.

This will give you an added benefit of something called 'pound cost averaging'. Smaller investing on a regular basis means any drop in share price wont be too noticeable. Crucially, any unused allowance doesn't roll over - so if you don't use it, you lose it forever. Any savings or investments which stay within the tax-free ISA wrapper will continue to earn interest and reap the tax benefits until you withdraw the money.

So it's possible to have substantial amounts invested within ISAs: Both the platform and the funds you invest in will cost you money. The main ones to look out for are:. It's as if you have to take a supermarket's bag, and some charge you 50p for it and others charge you 10p. This can either be a flat fee best for high investors or a percentage of the value of your funds the larger your funds, the more it'll cost you. Hargreaves Lansdown, the biggest provider, is now more expensive than some other ISAs.

We're telling you this because we know many people have their ISAs with it. But its new 0. It's worth pointing out that for any shares the 0. It is by no means the most expensive, there are platforms that charge much higher fees, but it is not as competitive as our best buys below. The larger your investment, the bigger the difference.

Having said all this, lots of investors like Hargreaves Lansdown for the depth of information and research it provides. So if you want the extra level of service and you're happy to pay a bit more for it, this might be a good option for you.

Other pricey platforms to keep an eye out for include Alliance Trust Savings. Willis Owen charges tiered annual platform fees up to 0.

The best buys have been calculated based on their current platform charges. Obviously, if you're holding funds over five to 10 years, charges can change. Firstly, we picked the providers based on their platform charge. We looked at over 25 different platforms. With the ones that came out cheapest, we dug a little deeper to get a rough idea of the platform's average fund charges. We calculated our average fund manager charge by looking into a mixture of popular funds from high to low risk, including three tracker funds.

If a fund wasn't available on a platform, we didn't include it in our calculations. We averaged out the fund price based on the available funds.

Our calculations are only based on the annual fund manager's fee - we haven't looked into any entry or exit fees. When choosing a platform to invest in, look at your specific fund charge to get an accurate comparison. Charles Stanley Direct has very similar charges to Cavendish Online below , so it's very difficult to separate the two. Like Cavendish, it has no trading charges on funds and no exit fees. The main distinguishing feature of Charles Stanley Direct over Cavendish Online, is that if you are new to investing, you may find Charles Stanley Direct's website easier to use.

For small investors, Cavendish Online has one of the lowest platform charges of up to 0. Cavendish offers a discounted route to one of the most popular fund platforms - Fidelity. If you went direct to Fidelity you'd be paying a platform fee of 0.

So if you don't mind the no frills approach Cavendish offers and want access to the funds Fidelity has, you'd be better off using Cavendish to save on the platform fee. Although AJ Bell below has similar platform charges tiered up to 0. For all the latest deals, guides and loopholes - join the 10m who get it. AJ Bell has similar platform fees as those above of up to 0. You have two choices. You can keep the same ISA with the same platform and switch funds within it. Or you can move platform to take advantage of lower platform charges , and either keep the same funds if they're available on the new platform or have different funds in it.

Back to our supermarket analogy. You might have a favourite product that you buy at Sainsbury's, but when you start shopping at Tesco you realise that it doesn't sell it, so you have to buy a different product to replace it.

You have to weigh up whether you continue shopping at Sainsbury's to keep getting the product you like, or move to Tesco, hoping it has something you end up liking even more. We've calculated our best buys based on their current platform charges. If you're holding funds over five to 10 years, these charges can change.

Firstly, we picked the providers based on their platform charges. With the ones that came out cheapest, we dug a little deeper to give you a rough idea of the platform's average fund charges. We averaged out the fund price based on what was available. Our calculations are only based on the annual fund manager fee - we haven't looked into any entry or exit fees. When choosing a platform to invest in, please look at your specific fund charge to get an accurate comparison.

Cavendish Online has low platform fees, and also doesn't charge you for buying and selling funds. So if you are transferring in a relatively small amount and know you want to trade frequently, then this is a good option for you.

Also, in the future, if you wanted to transfer to another provider, it doesn't charge you any transfer out fees which is a bonus.

So if you don't mind the no frills approach Cavendish offers and want access to the funds Fidelity has, you'd be better off transferring to Cavendish to save on the platform fee. If you stick with it for the long term it's good for transferring in a large amount. If you want a wide range of funds to choose from, Interactive Investor is a good alternative.

It has more funds than any of our other best buys that allow transfers, and offers a mobile app. If you want a diverse portfolio, and want to trade and check on your funds on the go, this is a good pick. You're investing in stocks and shares, so the value of your investment can go down as well as up, at any point. But what happens if your provider goes bust? If you've bought funds through a company and it goes bust, then yes, your money is safe. This is because if a fund manager goes bust and owes you money, funds will be protected and are likely to be taken over by another manager.

If you're new to investing but don't want to pay someone to manage your investments for you, lots of the big providers have free detailed fund and stock market information on their websites.

Here are our top picks to get up-to-date, in-depth and easy-to-read information on funds, so that you can swot up before deciding where to invest your cash. You can search for funds by name, company and sector to find out more about them. Or start by reading about the type of investment sector you're interested investing in; for example Asia, the U.

S, smaller companies in the UK or the so-called 'Equity Income' sector. For each, you can find an overview of how it's performed over specific time periods as well as reviews of specific funds within the sector and an explanation of how the sector itself works.

Each focus gives detailed information about the fund's history and how it's performing, as well as the lowdown on any charges you'd have to pay on the fund. Interactive Investor Interactive Investor has a wide range of information, including beginner's guides on a range of investments and a glossary of terms you might come across while you're researching investments.

Interactive Investor's research team have also produced tables showing the top 10 funds, the bottom 10 funds and the 10 most traded funds on its website in each monthly period. If you sign up for a free account you'll also be able to access the more in-depth technical insight section.

Here, once you're logged in, you'll be able to select specific funds and review performance and see any patterns that have emerged over time. Bestinvest Bestinvest's research team looks at more than 85, funds and compiles research on a monthly basis. Bestinvest's Premier Guide is a summary of all the top funds in Bestinvest's opinion and breaks down how they choose them, how they rate funds and in-depth information on all the top performers. You'll also find stock market news and a tool that allows you to search for particular fund managers by their performance and track record.

Charles Stanley Direct If you don't need as much hand-holding, Charles Stanley Direct's website has a good round-up of what's going on in the markets. The market data section of the website breaks down lists of FTSE companies and allows you to check performance for any time period from 1 day to 3 years.

You can also check which companies have risen and fallen, or view any changes by whole industry sector. All the information is updated every 15 minutes so you get a very accurate feel for what's going on in the market. There's also a news section on the website which is split by news, comment and fund research - so there's plenty of reading you can do before you get started. If you're not sure how to invest and what to invest in, seek independent financial advice.

Read the Financial Advice guide for more information.

Share ISA rules and Stock ISA rules

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Try to diversify as much as you can to lower your risk exposure. If you're saving over the short-term, it's wise not to take too much of a risk. It's recommended you invest for at least five years.

If you can't, cash is often best. A fund might be a dud, a fund manager might leave, or you might not be willing to take as many risks as you did before. Investments can go down as well as up. Don't be tempted to sell or buy funds just because everyone else is.

As an extra boon, members of specialist cashback websites can be paid when they sign up to some financial products. Do check that its exactly the same deal though, as terms can be different. NOT YET A FORUM MEMBER? If you go through it, it can sometimes result in a payment or benefit to the site. It's worth noting this means the third party used may be named on any credit agreements. Plus the editorial line the things we write is NEVER impacted by these links.

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You invest in individual companies. Owning a share is like owning a brick in a house wall. If the price of the house company goes up, so does your brick share , and vice versa. Most people use funds when investing. These can include bonds, shares, a mixture of the two, or in some cases, cash. Most funds have a specific theme, around which all the investments are based. Quick question What exactly are funds? How might CGT affect me? How much does it cost to invest with Hargreaves Lansdown and other platforms?

Quick question How did you do your analysis? The funds we used were: FAQs Unsubscribe Past Emails Privacy. Here are our top transfer picks: How did you do your analysis? Transfers take several weeks. You'll need to open an ISA account with Halifax first. Then fill out a form online, and post it to Halifax.

Transfers take up to four weeks. You'll need to open an account and complete its transfer forms. There's a step-by-step process to do this, and telephone support on Is my money safe? Get free research to help choose a fund If you're new to investing but don't want to pay someone to manage your investments for you, lots of the big providers have free detailed fund and stock market information on their websites.

It provides a pretty decent service and has a very helpful and easy-to-navigate website jam-packed full of information about funds - and you can make the most of this whether you sign up or not. Join in the MSE Forum Discussion: FREE MoneySaving email Week from 21 June MSE News Martin's Blog Deals Hunters.

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