May 2015 Update

I have decided to change the format of my portfolio update this month due to the fact I'm probably going to shift some of it down into cash in the next 2 years rather than leave our ISAs fully invested and use them to draw income. This means that the "big picture" is what is important so I am going to be recording our portfolio as a whole, which includes my LGPS AVC's (but not my DB pension itself) and our cash accounts.

I have done a "best guess" on what might need to happen over the next 6 - 9 months due to the fact that we might need to pay around £7,500 in tuition fees and gift both sons £5,000  each; the eldest to help with living expenses for the period and the youngest to add to his savings. The younger one is quite happy to leave the remainder of his gift with us as at the moment.

I am hoping to limit the move to cash to what we will actually need, as it's looking more and more hopeful that VR next April is on the cards. A little investigation into the pension rules and asking a few questions has revealed that giving access to my pension unreduced could well be part of the deal. The most likely scenario seems to be that I would be let go on "efficiency" grounds which would mean that I would have access to the pension but no redundancy money. Although that would reduce my cash "hand out" it would be a far superior long term result from my point of view and I would still receive cash in the form of my LGPS TFLS (£13,600), my LGPS AVCs (around £4,500) and a TFLS from my SIPP (£8,500) which gives me £26,600. This should be more than enough cash to gift a further £5,000 to the eldest son and put the £12,500 away in an ISA for the youngest (or whatever he thinks best).

I should know by the Autumn if VR is going to happen so at the moment I'm trying to do as little as possible, but as much as possible, to secure the cash and avoid having to sell equities at a low point. As there are two legacy funds in our ISA's that I would not buy if I were starting with a clean slate this is where I intend to start selling. The funds are CIS UK Growth and CIS UK Income and Growth. Both have actually done quite well over the last year or so and are currently near (or in) the top quartile for funds of their type. Although the fees are high at 1.5% Interactive Investor has been refunding half of this so I have been happy to hang onto them as part of our UK exposure. But, as we now need cash I think it's time, or very close to time, to sell. The likelihood of a wobbly UK market due to the prospect of an EU referendum only strengthens my feeling that this is the best move to make. Between them the two funds will raise just over £10,000 and so, along with the cash in our Santander account, should give us the cash buffer we (might) need for the next 9 months.

I know selling a big chunk of our UK stock like this will completely skew my asset allocations but I will have to think about rebalancing once there is a clearer picture of our whole financial situation. At the moment there are far too many unknowns, so doing what seems best at the time is as good a plan as any. :-)