Premium Bonds: A good investment?

Advantages: Winning a varied amount of money
Disadvantages: You need to invest a lot of money to guarantee consistent wins

...Although I'm not a very lucky person when it comes to these things I thought I'd write about it and let those of you out there that are unaware of what these are give you a little insight into them and my opinion on the matter. Premium bonds are another form of tax free investment that anyone aged 16 or above can invest in with a chance of scooping one of two million pound prizes as well as numerous others every month. Currently an investor can purchase anything from a £100 block to the maximum holding of £30,000. I must make everyone aware now that anyone lucky enough to have the maximum holding is almost certainly going to receive at least one prize every month. The prizes are as follows and are normally drawn within the first day or two of the month by ERNIE (Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment)... ~Prizes~ Higher...

K1r5ty21 13.09.2008 · Read review
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Review of National Savings and Investments Premium Bonds

Good investment

Advantages: Very good value
Disadvantages: earphone quality

...cannot take music off the ipod and onto your computer, so for example if you buy a new computer, you have to transfer all of your songs onto the computer, not plug in your ipod and transfer them that way. 2. The earphones are quite bad, they don't last particularly long and the quality isn't very good. 3. You HAVE to invest in a case, whether it be a sturdy one or just one of the sock, you do need something because it can scratch quite easily and if you are a perfectionist, you won't want this. 4. Of the new classic design, you only have two colours to chose from: black or silver. Hope this helps : )...

sofibarnes 20.11.2008 · Read review
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Review of Apple iPod classic 80 GB

Making investment fun

Advantages: Fun way to invest money
Disadvantages: You might not get good returns

...Until a couple of years ago I had heard of Premium Bonds, but had little idea about what they were and how they worked. Last year I came into a little bit of cash and instead of wasting it on crap like I normally do I decided to invest it. I put a little bit in an ISA and decided to buy some Premium Bonds as well as a friend had some and she always seemed to be winning ? plus the idea of potentially winning money each month appealed to me as well. What they are Premium Bonds are effectively a lottery and a savings account rolled into one. The difference between this savings account and the normal ones you get is that your money doesn?t get guaranteed interest each year; instead your premium bonds are entered into a draw each month with the chance of winning prizes that range from £50 all the way up to £1,000,000 tax...

fryera2 13.06.2007 · Read review
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Review of National Savings and Investments Premium Bonds

Good Long Term Investments

Advantages: Easier to trade than unit trusts, lower charges than unit trusts, you can buy assets at a discount, performance tends to be better than unit trusts
Disadvantages: The share price of investment trusts can be more volatile because of discounts and gearing, generally higher risk than unit trusts

...After reading up on investments in Money Observer magazine around 7 years ago, I decided to buy some shares in an investment trust through a share plan. My previous investments before this had been into unit trusts, which at the time had high initial charges of around 5%. Part of the reason I decided to invest in an investment trust was because of the lower charges involved and because you can get assets at a discount (more on this later). After this first investment I became more and more interested in investment trusts, they might not be interesting to everyone, but they were interesting to me. I think I find them so interesting because of the diverse and varying investment styles used by the fund managers. Also many investment trusts have been around for over 100 years, surviving many testing economic periods. The first investment...

gorvifal3 29.11.2005 · Read review
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Review of Member Advice on Investment Trusts

Trust me I'm an Investment

Advantages: See text
Disadvantages: See text

...It was the Victorians who first thought up the idea of Investment Trusts ? in 1868 to be precise. The Foreign and Colonial Government Trust was launched as a way of allowing people who didn?t have an awful lot of money to be able to invest relatively small sums and get all the benefits of having a large and diverse portfolio of shares. The Trust held 18 foreign government bonds. The word ?government? was dropped from the title and the Trust began to invest in companies as well. Foreign and Colonial Investment Trust now manages assets of £2.8 billion. In total there are more than 300 Investment Trusts with combined assets of £60 billion. The name ?Investment Trust?, though, is misleading, because an Investment Trust is not a Trust but a limited company, quoted on the Stock Market and shares can be bought and sold through...

SueMagee 21.09.2001 · Read review
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Review of Member Advice on Investment Trusts

The Perils of an Investment Club

Advantages: An excuse to go down the pub!
Disadvantages: Not for the faint hearted

...I run an investment club. We number thirteen members (yes I know), and have beengoing for two and a half years. We each invest £20 a month and invest mainly instocks and shares. We meet every couple of months at a local club on a quiet day todiscuss what to buy and sell and have a drink and a laugh. We all enjoy theexperience and the risk, but can we make a profit? Can we b*****ks! Apart from myself, who has had experience buying and selling shares, we are made up from friends an work colleagues and had no knowledge of the stock market. It shows! We've turned about eight grand into six and a half! We invest £1000 a time to minimise the risk of losing it all. Just as well we do. Our first share was in Tesco. We kept that for two years and made a modest profit out of it. Fatal! We thought we could do no wrong. Next to be bought were...

botmission 20.01.2001 · Read review
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Review of SHARES - INVESTING

A good investment...

Advantages: Long battery life, easy to use, short charge time.
Disadvantages: Yet another wire to get tangled.

...and the battery pack can take lots of bumps and bangs. As far as I can tell the battery can be charged hundreds (possibly into the thousands) of times before its battery life will begin to deteriorate. It would definitely advise you buy this battery pack because it is more of an investment than a purchase. The money that you spend on the charger (around £13 from Play.com) will quickly be returned to you from money that you have saved on expensive and potentially environmentally damaging AA batteries. Buy it, especially if you play on Xbox too much!...

JamieJCO 01.10.2008 · Read review
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Review of Microsoft Microsoft Xbox 360 Play and Charge Kit - Battery and charger NiMH

Ethical Investment

Advantages: challenge to your conscience
Disadvantages: a difficult area to navigate

...Ethical Investment, also known as 'socially responsible investing', or SRI This is probably one of the hardest reviews I have tried to write and research, as it raises some complex issues and no quick solution for people, who want to get rich, but not at the expense of the poor or the environment, or compromising their principles in general. I felt challenged by Tom Murcko's statement (a quote which I have used in one of my other articles) where he states "you can change the world in a small way by investing in companies you believe in, such as socially or environmentally conscious firms and mutual funds, or biotech companies that are working on diseases that might affect you or someone close to you." InvestorGuide.com. Wikipedia.org states that "The origins of socially responsible investing (SRI) may date back to the Religious...

llbcollins 16.11.2008 · Read review
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Review of Everything that starts with E ...

Beat The Credit Crunch (No, really!)

Advantages: low management fees and "zeros" give an absolute return
Disadvantages: not completely risk free

...I bet you don't believe any article entitled "Beat The Credit Crunch", but it really is possible using investment trusts - specifically Zero Dividend Preference Shares. I wrote an article on dooyoo a few months ago, and my predictions really did come true and Zeros just continued to plod upwards in value despite the collapse in other world markets. When the markets are low, like they are at the time of writing, even conventional investment trusts could be a good (albeit risky) investment too. What are Investment Trusts (a quick history lesson)? As a small boy I was terrified of my grandfather. He was just as scared of me and we had nothing to talk about until we discovered that we had a common interest in investment trusts. He was very old, but as it turned out investment trusts are even older. The first, Foreign and Colonial, was...

AndrewPo 06.10.2008 · Read review
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Review of Member Advice on Investment Trusts

For the less-than daring.

Advantages: A safe investment which is particularly advantageous for the higher rate taxpayer.
Disadvantages: Rates of interst paid are not generous but are partly inflation-linked.

...Yes, I know I keep having a go at National Savings & Investments, but it?s not that I?m prejudiced ? it?s that they?re less than generous with some of their products. I used to tell people and particularly higher rate tax payers what excellent value this investment provided. Unfortunately they seem to have realised and the returns offered have fallen. Let me explain to you how Index-Linked Savings Certificates work. You need a minimum investment of £100 and the maximum amount in each issue is £10,000. You need to be able to put the money away for a fixed term of either two years or five years. Now the problem with most fixed-term investments is that inflation eats into the buying-power of the money you?ve invested. You may have earned net interest of 2.5% on your Building Society account, but if inflation has been more than that...

SueMagee 06.02.2003 · Read review
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Review of National Savings and Investments