Good morning, Brendan.

There is only one basket I recommend for any investor who does not intend to die within ten years, and that is the 'basket of seven' investment trusts. It is nothing to do with TMFyad's High Yield Portfolio system of drawing dividends from individual shares, though I run HYPs as well and have written a lot about them on dedicated boards.

The B7 is not a general theory but a strict set of instructions for getting a perpetually rising (at least constant from year to year in real terms) income from trusts. The seven companies specified have to be bought all at once in equal quantities and held for ever.

No ingenious variations, no 'wouldn't it be even better if...', no tinkering, topping or tailing, no trying to switch into something that looks better later, no plotting to make capital gains as a 'secondary objective'. Fire and forget; an alternative to a pension annuity.

It pays more than annuities, can be tax-free within an ISA, may have some residual worth on death which can be bequeathed, and which can be broken into in emergency or loquidated wholesale should it stop working. There are no government guarantees behind it; only the world's oldest model of collective investment, which has endured all manner of stress and strain for nearly 150 years.

My suggestion is that the basket should be used to top up State and private pensions, not used as one's sole means of support in retiral. Cost-effective entry is under £10,000 gross, which would now produce c. £370 pa at the outset.

Apart from giving you an income in frequent instalments-- whose purchasing power is (on past form since 2000) preserved from year to year and occasionally enhanced-- it is simple to run. That is important for those of us who do not think money-meddling should be the focus of our sunset years, unlike HYP with its 'corporate events' requiring book-keeping and head-scratching. Trusts do not pester their shareholders for decisions, decisions.

My review of the B7 after eleven years, had it been bought at the same time as the first HYP, here:

http://boards.fool.co.uk/basket-of-seven-year-eleven-1257501...

The canard that this selection is an atypical exercise in hindsight is dealt with here:

http://boards.fool.co.uk/hindsight-revisited-12558969.aspx

And the impression that investment trusts majoring on income are historically expensive:

http://boards.fool.co.uk/how-cheap-was-my-it-1992-2012-12616...

If you want to be even more certain of the income stream, you can convert it to index-linked by the optional de-risking drill explained here:

http://boards.fool.co.uk/derisking-the-flow-12573210.aspx

However, there is reason to suppose that the trusts themselves will change their ways to make their dividends more copper-bottomed.

The basket was conceived to help some of the millions of ordinary people of modest means who are looking to supplement their meagre State dole and looted private pension entitlements as they advance towards senility. People like me.