low private pension and benefits help pre retirement age

[stevegrass777]

.... as long as the charges are low and the investment is good.

and that's the crux of the issue for me. Unless you have confidence in your portfolio managers removing the stocks/shares before any (the) collapse then you 'might' be ok.

History tends to show that such management is rare, particularly since they don't run any personal risk themselves, and you could end up with nothing.

Some would still insist in precious metals as the only real safe place to keep your wealth.

Well a all share tracker doesn't really have a crack team of managers to pay to select shares and sell them as they see fit,it will physically track by holding the companies within the all share index.
This is the top 600 companies listed on the LSE by market value,so automatically the bottom companies will fall off and new companies will enter,I think this happens twice yearly.
This is the long term chart.

http://stockmarketalmanac.co.uk/wp-cont ... 0-2013.png

With the all share rather than buying a player your buying the field,so it doesn't really matter if a company doesn't do well because eventually it will be replaced with a better one.So as a holder of the all share you would be a part owner of all these business and will receive income via dividends and reinvest these dividends to compound over the years so you have a ever increasing share.
Here are the constituents

http://www.stockchallenge.co.uk/ftse.php

I can see that precious metals can be a better holding than cash but it's hard to say they are better than income producing shares/companies there is a argument that precious metals can form part of your portfolio as a hedge against market falls and you can rebalance every year or use % triggers to rebalance and this can be a good way to invest.
But on its own Gold (I will take this as it's the most popular metal) costs money to store and gives no income,it is pretty but if you own a big gold bar in ten years you will still own a big gold bar,it won't grow at all it will stay the same,
It could probably be exchanged for more paper money than was paid originally,but will most likely not equal the amount that income producing assets like shares produce over the long term.
It's best use is a hedge and to rebalance shares,so to compliment rather than a replacement.

[big-all]

i had worked out with my dads inhertance and the lump sum[total around 31k] i could pretty much live off the interest at 8% giving about £2500 or nearing £50 a week on top off my pension
at that stage the best i could get was 3% on something like £5400 or what ever the isa limit was then tied up for three years the remaining was with ing at something like 1.8% in a savings account
any way to cut a long story short on each years isa allowance i would invest the maxim making sure i had £5k available around april for the next year spend with sucsessive lower returns
i would far rather have the low returns pay no charges and have no risk

[stevegrass777]

i had worked out with my dads inhertance and the lump sum[total around 31k] i could pretty much live off the interest at 8% giving about £2500 or nearing £50 a week on top off my pension
at that stage the best i could get was 3% on something like £5400 or what ever the isa limit was then tied up for three years the remaining was with ing at something like 1.8% in a savings account
any way to cut a long story short on each years isa allowance i would invest the maxim making sure i had £5k available around april for the next year spend with sucsessive lower returns
i would far rather have the low returns pay no charges and have no risk

"Have no risk " is what most folks do with good reason I suppose.
But With no risk quite often you get no reward or at least very little reward when taking inflation into account,and its paper money that gets eroded every time they print money/quantitative easing,shares actually did very well out of this,but the poor £20 note is only worth a tenner now.
I am just trying to show people that there are other ways to invest than just bank accounts that pay very little.
Also you can invest in this kind of thing with a relatively low amount like £50 a month + this can be covered by cancelling sky tv or switching utilities or a hole host of other savvy savings.
Its a common misconception that shares are for the rich,I would say the opposite is true,shares are in my opinion one of the only ways ordernary workers on modest incomes can get exposure to assets /companies that get privileged treatment,privileged contracts etc
So as your investment grows you are becoming less of a worker and more of a big business owner,the more you put in the faster this happens,eventually your investments in big business can become a tidy sum for very little cost.
It's a good wealth builder,but it's surprising how many people won't do it because of perceived risk,even though there is risk in putting your money in a bank most folks can't or won't see that risk.
When you deposit into a bank account for instance that money no longer belongs to you (most people don't know that)
http://www.talkcarswell.com/home/who-ow ... ou-or/2633

your bank balance is more of an iou than an actual amount,due to fractional reserve banking (you can find some good YouTube videos that explain this) that money doesn't just sit there waiting for you to withdraw it.
Also the government guarantee scheme has nowhere near enough money to cover deposits,it's just there to stop people panicking and withdrawing all the dosh.
Maybe I'm just a investment nut,I have done well out of it so I suppose that makes me biased
It is a viable alternative to a pension without some of the drawbacks,but I don't see a bank account as a alternative myself,the returns are just to low.