Speaking of ‘pensions’ and ‘excitement’, probably the biggest news in the pensions world recently has been the expansion of products you can include in a SIPP (Self-Invested Personal Pension). SIPPs are a bit like Isas in that they’re not an investment in themselves, just a sort of bag into which you can put various different investments.

• You get to control what you invest in and not some faceless, obscure, high-charging bunch of fund managers.
• You can put a range of different things into a SIPP, spreading the risk.
• You can put actually interesting things into a SIPP including property and art collections if you want.
• The charges for running a SIPP have dropped with the introduction of online SIPP providers.
• As with other pensions, you get the tax invested during the life of the investment.

• Most of us can’t even run our bank accounts properly so, unless we get a whole lot better very quickly (which of course we will by following the advice in this site!), we’re not going to run our SIPPs at all well.
• Many SIPP providers still slap on comparatively high charges so to get the most out of it ideally you need to have a lot of money invested.
• Although the rules for SIPPs have been set (more or less), what various providers will actually accept within the SIPP vary enormously. For example, some will allow you to include foreign property, some won’t.
• The rules governing putting collections into a SIPP are still pretty muddy. You’ll need good advice on those.
• As with other pensions, you may have to buy an annuity with a large portion of the fund when you retire.

If you like to do your investments yourself, SIPPs are certainly worth a look. However, they are very much an advanced option – only really a good idea for people who are very experienced and confident in stock market investing.

The rules are still being clarified but currently SIPP holders have several options as to what their pension fund can buy – in other words, what goes into the ‘bag’:

• Commercial property,
• Stocks and shares
• investment trusts
• unit trusts
• OEICS
• Gilts
• Collections (art, wine, stamps etc)

For a lot more information on the ins and outs of SIPPS (and really do read and study as much as you can if you’re seriously considering investing in one) look at the money section on the BBC website for more information.