Passive investing

[buildingmycorestrength]

Hi, I am pretty new to this and not sure of terminology etc so please be patient.

My husband and I have various investments.

-Pension each
-Child Trust Fund for each child
-House with equity but also big mortgage (about 2/3 house value is mortgage, 1/3 equity)
-Some premium bonds
-I have a cash ISA too.

So. We had a windfall, some of which I would like to invest passively to potentially grow. I've done a bit of reading about basic tracker funds on blogs like Monevator and they seem like a good option for basically lazy investors, and can be low cost. But I don't know what kind to pick. The people recommending them say you need to choose one that fits your portfolio (in terms of balancing risk, whether to choose ETFs over FTSE250 tracker, whatever ) but I don't really know what my existing portfolio looks like!

I don't really understand what I'm doing, can you tell? So, any help appreciated....what do I need to find out and decide in order to get going on this?

[evilkitten]

This article might help ...

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/article-1583915/A-guide-cheapest-index-tracker-funds.html

[buildingmycorestrength]

Thanks for taking pity on me! I have read articles like that before and got bogged down in questions of ETFs vs FTSE trackers, all share vs 100, etc, but I think for me it is better to just get going.

So the Fidelity Money builder All Share Tracker looks quite good. Only 0.1% annual management charges, which if I invest £50 a month or £600 a year means , um, 60p a year charges for the first year. Or maybe they charge you on the value of your fund rather than the amount put in. Anyway, cheaper than any others.

If I decide to stop investing monthly, can I just leave the money with them? Or do I need to keep putting in £50 a month forever?

[ModeratelyObvious]

You can leave the money with them.

[buildingmycorestrength]

Thank you. Am still looking, find the charges confusing.