EBS Bonus Save? - Regular long-term savings for children's education

K

Kelloggs

Guest
We have EUR 150 per month to save for our children's education. Since we are looking at a time-frame of at least 15 years, we would like to invest this money in a fund rather than just save it in a deposit account.

We are considering opening an EBS Choice Bonus Save regular savings account and investing in the Consensus fund. However, we are concerned about the fees & charges: 1% govt. levy, 3% fund charge on each contribution and a further 1.9% fund management charge built into the unit price. Is this too expensive and should we consider e.g. Rabo as a cheaper alternative?

Note that we do expect to be able to maintain these payments long-term, and therefore avail of the bonuses built into the plan, even if the children's allowance is reduced. We would get a EUR 360 bonus after year 6 (20% of our year 1 contributions) and EUR 540 bonus after year 10 (30% of year 7), and a further EUR 360 every 5 years thereafter, if we maintain our contributions. This would effectively "refund" us the bulk of the 3% fund fee.

Would be interested to hear of other people's views/experiences for this type of unit-linked plan, particularly after reading mercman's recent thread about "the real cost of investing".

Thanks and regards.
 

what kind of product mix does the fund have
 
It's classed as a high-risk fund in the brochure description: "This fund invests up to three-quarters in world-wide shares, with the rest in a mix of bonds, property and cash... The fund matches the average mix they [the 'main investment managers in Ireland'] make in shares, property and cash - we do not decide on the mix of assets in the fund."
 

if i was you id try and get into a commodities fund , energy is on the up , soft commodities like food are booming and prescious metals like gold and silver the same

that said , you could invest in a commodity fund and it could still make nothing right now if the manager doesnt put the money in well run companys , this happened to me when i was in a dud irish life fund a few years , it never made a schilling despite having been in commodities at a time when agriculture , oil and gold were soaring , theese fund managers get paid the same regardless of whether the fund performs or not and ebs only care amount the commision , im not a fan of funds , they are a lazy way for banks to make money and the customer is lured into a false sense of security by being led to believe that experts are managing thier money , my motto is be carefull to trust other people with your money

direct shares are a better buy IMO
 
Thanks for the advice farmerette. How would we go about doing that and would this be a suitable long-term investment to be making regular payments into? Our experience with investments to date is limited to equities. Is it not very expensive for small investors like us to get into buying individual shares?
 
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