DOD wrote:"Let me reassure you and others in the same situation. I worked abroad for most of my adult life and instead of my employer providing me with a guaranteed pension for life, I, like my expat colleagues, was given a lump sum, what in my day was called a provident fund, maybe still is. So I had my own 'pension freedom' whether I liked it or not. We were given no info or guidance, just paid out and goodbye, have a good retirement. After taking a few months to get myself sorted out in what to me was a foreign country (the UK) I set about trying to invest my PF. The only thing I knew was that I was not going to hand it over to some insurance company in exchange for an annuity. After a lot of trial and error (I had never heard of The Motley Fool and The Lemon Fool did not exist then) I settled in to a pattern with my investment portfolio and now almost exactly 25 years later I have much more capital than I started with and have a good income. I live entirely off my dividends plus the State pension (which I use as a travel fund)
I have been in retirement through the dot com boom and bust in 2000/1 and the financial crisis of 2008/9 with no problems to speak of. I am self taught if that is the right expression, conservative I think and a patient, long term investor. There are a lot of things I would have done differently, but that applies to life in general, not just to investing.
My advice would be to read as much as you can (these Boards will undoubtedly help), but not to worry too much. You will develop an investment philosophy in time although it will probably cost you one or two investment mistakes to do so.
Good luck and do not waste a lot of time worrying about it.
Dod
Excellent advice from DOD.
I was in a similar position to DOD and followed a similar strategy but it all went horribly wrong.
As an expat for 42 years, I had no pension, not even the UK old age one. During this period I worked on a project by project basis in 8 countries. Like DOD, I was paid lump sums after each contract. I realized early on that I needed to invest the cash for retirement. I read a lot (but not enough) and gradually began to really enjoy the process.
As DOD says, it is inevitable that we make mistakes as part of the learning process. I made 2 whoppers. I was grossly overexposed to Asia and foolishly thought I knew all you needed to know.
Then came the Asian Financial Crisis, and I was wiped out. To compound matters, I was diagnosed with the dreaded lurgy and lost my profession and therefore my income. Nightmare on Elm Street comes easily to mind.
Having suddenly all the time in the world, I took to reading as much as I could and this helped a lot. However, I deemed I had to take terrifying risks to claw back some of the lost cash. The cautious passive dividend investing that I now use was no use to someone with no cash or income. I devised a strategy which terrifies me to this day but desperation was the greater influence.
Fortunately, I was able to get it all back and more. Why my strategy was so successful I will never really know but tend to think it was some combination of careful-ish high risk taking, patience to wait very long periods for the right timing and, yes, successive doses of good luck. I worked exclusively with macro market moves. I am proof, at least to myself, that you can indeed time markets some of the time but couldn't dream of doing anything so scary again. For sure my come-uppance was always just around the corner and I knew it.
So what is the point of repeating this sorry tale again? Don't get overconfident at any time and keep learning but in the highly unlikely event that the worst happens, don't despair. You will always find a way out.
TP2
