Broker Costs Simplified

by Mike Rawson · Published · Updated
by Mike Rawson · Published March 10, 2023
by Mike Rawson · Published February 13, 2015 · Last modified October 13, 2016
by Mike Rawson · Published May 23, 2016 · Last modified March 23, 2018
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It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.
I’m always conscious that that companies do need an incentive to manage my money. So I’m happy with the £200 for HL to run my SIPP, but don’t feel I owe them extra, so have my non tax-break funds in ETFs which cost nothing.
I also want access to funds for some market trackers which aren’t ETF based, so use Iweb for ISAs, and I got in at the cheaper rate. I’m aware they only make occasional dealing fees out of me, so am not sure how sustainable their model is.
I don’t want all my eggs on one basket, so want several brokers, 2 isn’t quite enough, but Charles Stanley’s costs got too high so I left them.
If only companies would accept that £100 pa flat fees were sufficient to run their systems, I could accept paying £300 p/a for three of them to manage £600k, so 0.05% platform fee combined with 0.1% fund fee was fair given the division of work running funds and telling me about it.