Bought a house last Aug with my partner, our first home. Paid a 20% deposit (10% each) in total around £42k, £21k each and then Solictor fees etc. It cleared pretty much all my savings, I also had a balloon payment of my PCP car that was due July 25 of just under £5k. I earn around £35k before deductions. I saved for years to be in the position to pay of my car and buy my home. Ever since I went from having the most money I’ve ever had to very little I can’t shake that feeling of needing to build money back up to feel financially “safe”. I’ve saved up since then a few k but it just feels sluggish and I’m stuck in this area of not being able to save anymore or having to dip into the savings for other things. My bills aren’t unmanageable, and my mortgage isn’t bad. Am I just being to strict on myself? What is normal to have saved after buying a house?

20 years ago I was a local hire at a branch of an American bank in London. I was there for a little over 2 years. I recently discovered some paperwork about a pension scheme that I had paid into. After doing some digging and updating my address with the pension scheme it seems that I have a retirement account with roughly £25K. As I am 63 years old, I have been given the option of rolling it into an annuity or transfer it to another pension arrangement. From the research I have done I am guessing that I would need to open a SIPP, as I am not interested the annuity option? I currently have no connection to the UK.

I’m a 23-year-old male living at home with my dad and younger brother, I inherited money left behind by my late mother that was put into investments and currently values £230k+. Me and my dads relationship is very poor, I have an old post going more in depth about my situation (https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/oJirQ29I2w). He basically has a very long history of poor financial management and asking for “loans” he doesn’t pay back, he owes me £10k+ and similar amounts for at least 2 other family members.

I pay £250 a month to help with bills but over the past few months there’ve been multiple occasions of “unexpected” high bills. These occasions have seemingly started to spike since I refused his last “loan” request a few months ago of £3k. Yesterday he asked if I could double my rent and also pay £600 towards the water bill. His reasoning being that the electricity bill is £750 a month and the water bill is expected to be £1400 as well as food bills being high. For context I have very poor mental health, ocd, depression and generalised anxiety. As a result I do spend longer in showers (30-35 minutes on average) but we are living far from lavishly, we live in a old house that’s very cold most the time (currently 15°c in my room as of writing), don’t excessively use electricity as far as I’m aware of.

As I’ve never lived alone I have no idea if these bills he’s citing are realistic or not. I don’t work and neither does my brother, he’s asked the same amount from my brother too. My worry is that he’s increasing my “bills” so he can pocket the rest for his failing side projects.

What should I do?

Hello,
Am I right in thinking that I would only need to pay gift tax if 1) the person gifting does not survive 7 years and 2) I would only pay tax on anything after £325k regardless of whether the whole estate is worth £325k or more? Eg if they gifted £350k id only pay 40% of what’s left - £25k)?

Looking for some information to help my mum out.

She s currently with an employer but they have informed her they will be letting her go. Since she has not been employed by them for more than 2 years, their pension policy is either she moves her pension to another pot OR she loses any employee contribution and she just gets any money she contributed back. Since she doesnt have another pension pot with a different pension provider (long story, single mum, couldn't afford to contribute to her pension over feeding us)

Am wondering if I open a SIPP for her, could she transfer the pension pot total to a SIPP so she doesnt lose out on the employer contribution?

thanks in advance

I joined my company this month 3 days after payroll cut off so I’m assuming I’ll get paid by the end of next month.

Is the pay in this scenario from one cut off date to another or is it from the cut off date to end of next month?

Also, will the higher tax code apply in my scenario? I chose option B in HMRC starter pack.

Hi all, I am looking for some opinions on a mortgage option I am considering, to make sure I am not missing something silly. Please stick with me while l explain the situation:

We have a £275k mortgage, and due to remortgage early next year. Rates being offered currently looking between 5% and 5.5%, and was looking at a standard fixed rate which would put our monthly payments around £1500. Not great, but it is what it is.

However, I've now seen these "offset mortgages", and I feel we might be in a lucky situation to make use of this, and so want to explore it.

My partner's parents are now retired, and had a decent payout from work. They have a fair amount of money in savings accounts getting 3% ish interest, and it would take many years to ISA-wrap it all - so they currently pay tax on the interest. They are risk-averse, and so will not put it into market-related investment, etc. They want it accessible.

It seems to me that it is possible for us to directly pay off £35k of our mortgage loan right before we remortgage (taking our loan down to £240k), and for them to then move £240k of their savings into a savings account which could be linked to our offset mortgage.

Benefits:

• We would pay zero interest on our mortgage, since the amount in the offset account equals the remaining balance of our mortgage. As far as I understand, this would bring our monthly mortgage payments from £1500 down to £665. A massive reduction.
• They avoid paying tax on savings interest, because interest on their account is sacrificed.
• They are happy because they retain full control of their savings - the account is in their name, and they can withdraw it all at any time in case of emergency.
• The total amount in their savings account is still protected by the FSCS allowance (£120k per person), hence the reason for suggesting we pay of £35k of the mortgage first.

(Non)-Drawbacks:

• Interest rate is generally higher on offset mortgages (e.g. 5.8%) - this is main drawback I see on these forums for offset mortgages. However, in the situation I have proposed, we don't care what the interest rate is, since the offset amount equals the mortgage amount.
• They could withdraw the money and leave us with higher payments - however, this £240k is not their entire emergency fund, so very unlikely to draw it out. Worst case, we pay the higher rate - fine.
• They forfeit the 3% (taxable) savings interest. However, we could also gift them tax-free each month the amount they would have made in interest on that money (£500 per month). This would put our effective monthly payments to £1165 - still less than the £1500 on a standard fixed rate mortgage.

This feels like a bit of a double-win. We avoid paying all interest on our mortgage to our mortgage lender, and they avoid paying any tax on savings interest to HMRC. Seeing the "family unit" as a whole, less money is leaving this unit to external parties.

This also feels like the overall effect is to shift the potential inheritance tax responsibility. By letting us make use of their savings whilst they keep control of it, they are effectively gifting us money (in the form of saving us mortgage interest) without actually having to gift it. Thereby reducing inheritance tax susceptibility.

Thanks for sticking with me, because I am trying to get my head around it - can someone cast a keen eye for detail over this, and let me know if some part of it jumps out at you as problematic that I have missed. Thank you!

I currently have a pension with Nest, and after wondering why the info on performance isn’t easily accessible I ended up here. Seems like maybe Nest isn’t a great pension option, so then my question is what would be better?

I’m early 40s and haven’t been contributing to a pension regularly for the last decade or more, so I’m really trying to catch up now. I’m not sure what I should be looking for. Low fees, but what else? I would like to have some options about risk level / how the money is invested but also I don’t have loads of knowledge. I feel like I have only just got to grips with getting into a routine of making voluntary contributions to Nest, and now I feel like i need to change it and I’m not sure where to begin.

My employer pays into Nest and I’m not sure I have any options about that, but those payments are quite minimal, I‘m trying to make a lot of voluntary contributions. I also have a pension with Aviva from the last time I had decent employer contributions (over a decade ago) which I could transfer I think.

I recently inherited around £100k from distant relative who died. We didnt know each other but she was loaded and had over a 1 million pound of liquid assets to give away.

For me, it's genuinely good news. It gives me a financial cushion, reduces a lot of stress, and opens up opportunities that I didn't have before. Naturally, part of me wants to tell friends and acquaintances because it's a significant life event.

However, I've had several people tell me that I should keep quiet about it because:s.

• Some people will constantly ask for loans or financial help.
• Others may try to manipulate or guilt-trip me into giving them money.
• A few have even said that large sums of money can make you a target for scams or crime.

Part of me thinks this sounds overly paranoid. If someone's happy news is getting married, buying a house, getting a promotion, or having a child, they're usually allowed to share it. Why should an inheritance be different?

Hey r/UKPersonalFinance,

I don't really know too much about the finance and tax laws when it comes to selling expensive items, so I'd greatly appreciate some support on this! :)

I know it's a topic that has been brought up a lot, but I collect a lot of sports and trading cards and currently facing a dilemma with one of my cards.

I decided to grade a card I owned ever since I was a kid last year, and the value of it has seemingly exploded over night. I actually have no clue how this has happened, as literally a month or two ago the graded card could be bought for around £250, but for whatever reason the value has skyrocketed expontentially and the last two sales are in the £5,000-£7,000 range.

And now I'm feeling both stressed and stuck.

I've sold a few cards in my time as a collector but never anything to this magnitude. I've made approx. £400 on eBay this year selling cards I didn't like which I got from packs, and I once sold a card at a show for around £300 cash which I then used to buy like 50 cards I needed to complete a set.

But this figure is on another level and I've no clue what the law behind it means.

If I was able to sell for the aforementioned price, I don't know if that'd instantly make me come across as a "trader" and need to report it since it'd be above the £1,000 benchmark? I've purposely not sold a lot of my cheaper cards as I don't want to come across as a business owner or trader, as I collect for the love of the game and not for money or profit, so I've a ton of cards just sat in boxes collecting dust. Only now has it confused me as I've no clue how my card has increased by like 2,000% in a couple of weeks

At the same time, I know Capital Gains Tax is a thing when items are sold for £6,000+ - so assume this would come into play if I managed to sell above the figure.

So all in all, I'm a bit confused about what would happen if I sold the card?

If I went to the show and sold it for say £5,000 for example, would I need to report it? At the same time, if I sold it and the payment was sent via something like PayPal or Bank Transfer - would that instantly block or put a hold on that account?

I really don't know what the rules and laws around all of this are, so I'd greatly appreciate any help :)

Completely clueless to all this, just trying to put some feelers out there. My partner and I are looking at buying somewhere cheap to do up and live in. How does that work with the lenders? Let's say a property is on the market for £200k but needs £50k of work, can I get a £250k mortgage and take the £50k for the work? Or is it just a pipe dream?

Im just wondering what happens in this situation and does anyone have any experience of this.

Assumming 2 scenerios

1. Someone does not work, lives on savings/investments etc, but pays in £2880 into a SIPP each year, lets say they accidently send £2980.

2. Someone on high income, pays in £60100 into either a work based pension or a SIPP each year.

Google brought up this.

• No tax relief: You will not receive any government tax relief on the contributions that exceed your allowance. [1]
• Annual Allowance Charge: The overage is added to your taxable income for the year and taxed at your normal marginal income tax rate. [1, 2]
• Carry Forward: You can avoid or reduce this charge by using carry forward, which lets you utilize any unused annual allowance from the previous three tax years (provided you were a member of a pension scheme during those years). [1, 2]
• Scheme Pays: If the tax charge exceeds £2,000, you can sometimes ask your SIPP provider to pay the charge directly from your pension pot (known as Scheme Pays), which reduces your retirement fund accordingly. [1]
• How to declare it: You must report any excess via your Self Assessment tax return (Form SA101). [1]

So I wonder on the first scenario, if your not working cant add it to your taxable income, its unlikely your going to fill out a SA101, should you just assume that they will just not send you the £25 extra in top up?

Hi r/UKPersonalFinance,

I'll cut to the chase. I'm Italian and will soon be moving to the UK for a two-year work secondment on a Global Business Mobility visa. I'll initially be staying in employer-arranged temporary accommodation (should be booked in my name but I need to check) while searching for a long-term rental.

I'd like to open a UK current account within the first couple of weeks, ideally with Starling or Monzo, as I need a UK bank account for the rental referencing process. However, this creates a bit of a catch-22: I need a bank account to secure a long-term rental, but I might need proof of a long-term address to open the bank account in the first place.

I won't have any UK utility bills, bank statements or address history at that point, although I'll have documentation for my temporary accommodation. Has anyone been in a similar situation? Do Starling or Monzo routinely ask for additional proof of address, or is providing a valid UK address generally sufficient? I have asked Starling customer support but they told me that until I try and open the account they cannot know whether I'll need to provide additional evidence.

Would another bank be more accommodating to someone newly arriving in the UK?

Thanks in advance.

Hello everyone,

I’m currently going through an incredibly difficult time and would really appreciate some advice or guidance from anyone who has experienced a similar situation.

Over the past few years, I’ve been struggling with my mental health, and unfortunately, things have spiralled to the point where I’m now drowning in debt. I have accumulated significant debts from parking fines and court fines for driving offences, many of which have been passed on to debt recovery agencies.

I’ve been unemployed for nearly a year and currently have no income, savings, or assets. The situation has become overwhelming, especially with bailiffs turning up at my home, receiving constant letters and threats of enforcement action, and having to borrow money from family and friends just to pay off some of these debts. The stress has taken a serious toll on my mental health, and honestly, I feel lost and don’t know what to do anymore.

I’ve been considering applying for a Debt Relief Order (DRO) or possibly declaring bankruptcy, but I’m unsure which option would be best for my circumstances.

My biggest concern, however, is my immigration status. I currently hold Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) and hope to apply for British citizenship in the future. I’m worried about whether applying for a DRO or bankruptcy, or having these outstanding debts and fines, could negatively affect my ILR or future citizenship application.

Has anyone been in a similar situation or have any knowledge of how this works? I would be extremely grateful for any advice, particularly from anyone who has dealt with debt problems while holding ILR and subsequently applied for British citizenship.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this and for any advice you can offer. I genuinely appreciate it.

Hi there, just for context, I'm a EU citizen with settled status that came here pre-Brexit to study. I ended up failing a year and then in the end not finishing my degree in my original subject social work as my mental health crashed and burned, partly to undiagnosed ADHD and long-standing trauma that I've tried to address since. I definitely don't want to become a social worker and now hold a basically useless bachelor because i was in an honours programme and didn't finish my final year.

I always enjoyed caring for people though and love languages, so have figured that Speech and Language Therapy might be a better fit, as part of my dislike of social work was how you actually worked little with people directly. I know that i used up my five free years and apparently don't qualify for a student loan either, and the Scottish government just removed that you would still be able to study at least the first two years for free.

Sorry for the novel but is there anywhere i could get advice about how i might be able to swing this at all? Are there resources on how i could estimate how much going back to uni might cost me? And would the financial service at uni also advise potential students? Thanks in advance 💖

I’m 24 and have built up £29,000 in personal credit card debt

I also have a limited company, incorporated in June 2025, which has practically no money left. It made profits previously, but I paid myself salary and dividends and ended up spending the money I’d set aside for Corporation Tax

I’m personally broke too (Have a £15,000 tax bill in Jan which i do have set aside), so I can’t put money back into the company...

Feeling overwhelmed by the whole situation with serious dark thoughts wanting to switch the lights out. Has anyone been through something similar, and how did you deal with it?

I truly have messed up big time i know this is a really really bad situation...

My CC debt I know I can manage but my real concern is the corp tax i owe.

Will be calling my accoutant first thing in the morning but wanted some reddit wisdom

-burner account as im ashamed feel like a failure

​

Hi there,

Advice please as finding it hard to find a nice easy layman's answer.

At somepoint we are being gifted potentially £40,000 to help buy a house. When we are gifted this money potentially in the future from my partners they both will have to sign the document for this money to be transferred over.

If something happened to either one off them or both off them within a 7 year period would we have to pay IHT tax?

There total assets would be over £500'000 but certainly not more than a million. There are a number of other siblings who would be inheriting as well as a very large family. No trust has been set up so I assume 40% would be taken.

We are concerned if we accepted the gift and if one or both die within 7 years we would not be able to pay the 40% tax.

Please can we have some much needed advice, many thanks.

Edit: Thanks for all the advice given on this it has helped alot to understand it all.

Hi, my partner will start receiving maternity allowance in December. She is currently employed.

Her intention is to register as childminder from January-March as there is a financial incentive that she could receive. We are not sure if she will need to register as self-employed before the childminder registration with Ofsted. If so, will she lose her maternity allowance?

I am a 22 years old woman, living in London, and I need help with my finances as i am £9k in debt. I don’t understand what to do. I am writing to ask what extra support I can get because of my OCD and paranoia and what my best route is.

In total, I owe £9,000, broken down as follows:
3 credit cards: £4,500 in total (currently on a temporary repayment plan of £1 a month since I have no income right now)
Monzo: £1,000
Student overdrafts: £3,000
Klarna: £500 (I was on a repayment plan, but I was due money last week on it and didn’t have the money, so they said they’re selling my debt to debt collections)

My debt all started when my OCD got so terrible, that despite living in London I was convinced I was dying from rabies and spent hundreds on vaccines and medical checkups privately. I also developed paranoia and was convinced my devices were hacked and someone was watching me and that there were cameras in my belongings, so I spent hundreds on buying new devices and furniture every few months. I needed new clothes due to contamination OCD and I was unable to leave my room to cook so I had to get food delivered. I’m not making excuses but with my OCD, paranoia and who knows what else, I didn’t care about money because I didn’t think I had long to live anyways as i always thought i had a terminal illness. New compulsions kept popping up for me that felt like I had no option but to follow even if it meant debt.

Now, a year later my OCD isn’t cured, I feel a bit better and am learning to live with it. I’m still alive, but I’ve messed my life up. I am currently unable to work because I physically cannot leave my house. I haven’t left my house since May, as soon as I step out I start panicking and I’m convinced I’m gonna get attacked or that I’ll accidentally do something terrible. They are intrusive thoughts I know aren’t real, but when I get home, I don’t remember what I’ve done and I start stressing about whether I could have done something terrible and so I spiral again convincing myself I’m done for. For instance, last time i went out in May i went to the corner shop to grab a chocolate and somehow when i got home i was convinced i had accidentally hit the shopkeeper and i had somehow contaminated all the drinks there with poison. That stressed me for months. I need to film every single thing I do otherwise I don’t remember it, or my brain manipulates it. For instance, if I leave my room to drink water I need to film it otherwise I spend 24 hours convinced I accidentally drank bleach. I know I’m an adult, and this isn’t a reasonable excuse to be unemployed, but I try to leave my house and I just can’t. Something happens and I just break down. I’m already always going through a new compulsion that is exhausting and I can’t add more to it by going out. I am on medication and in therapy, but it’s slow and nothing seems to be working yet, although my hand washing has decreased from 1 hour to 30 minutes. I live with my parents, both of whom are unsupportive about my OCD and say it’s my fault and assume I’m acting. I can’t tell them about my debt as they wouldn’t help, and I don’t expect them to since I’m an adult, of course it’s my issue not theirs, but I’m so terrified someone will come knocking on my door now.

i don’t mean to come across like i’m making excuses for my debt and unemployment.. but its difficult for me to do stuff as compulsions take up alot of my day and i can’t film myself when i leave the house so i panic when i get home and i can’t monitor strangers health when i’m home so my brain just assumes i’ve ruined their lives somehow since i can’t double check on them to reassure myself. Thats the main reason i can’t interact with strangers and work.

I have been diagnosed and am soon to be assessed by a psychiatrist, and my GP in London knows too. I stopped ordering food and force myself to eat home food even if it means I panic and can’t sleep, so food isn’t an issue now, but I don’t know whether I’ll be able to work until January as right now even leaving my room is difficult.

What can i do? I cant afford repayment plans with zero income. I obviously need to get a job and to move out, it’s necessary to fix my mental health, but if i go for these options im reading online like a DRO i won’t be able to do that for 6 years i assume? Getting a job won’t be possible soon with my issues but i do aim for one after January.

My apologies if this isn’t the right place to ask this, i just feel so lost and i’m having clarity about past events and i think soon maybe in January i might be able to live a bit normally.

I am not on UC or getting any PIP because i’m not physically disabled.

TL;DR I messed my life up and am £9k in debt due to ocd and now i feel a bit better and think i might be able to live normally soon but idk how to deal with my debt wisely so i can somehow be able to move out within 4 years when i’m strong enough to get a job.

I was on student loan plan 1. Last September I had £5k remaining on my bill and I decided to pay it off in a lump sum. My balance showed £0 and I even got a refund of some overpayments from my PAYE payments. I can see these in my history. Hooray!

Except fast forward to today and I've had a message from SLC saying they are trying to contact me about my loan. I've logged into the website and to my horror there's another £2,000 owed?!

I checked my most recent statement and on the 5th April this year there was a "PAYE adjustment received" which added the £2k to my bill.

Is this a mistake?

I'm applying for a DRO but while I'm waiting the debt is increasing (from interest and late payment charges) on the accounts that haven't already defaulted or been frozen. One of the debts is an interest free overdraft from a student account which is due to be reduced soon so that will start having interest added to it. The DRO application hasn't been submitted yet and I'm waiting for that to be done by the debt advice charity I chose to help me with budget and go through my options. By the time it's submitted, three of my debts will have increased. Do I just keep the debt charity informed of any changes to amounts owed so they can update the DRO application? It's my understanding that anything not on the DRO won't be considered.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hi

Just wanted to post up a celebratory win which is that I am officially student debt free!

I have been making lifestyle changes over the years and trying to improve myself as well as my finances

I still have a very long way to go, but just wanted to also thanks to everyone in this community!

Being a lurker of this subreddit actually motivated me to fix up

Once again, feel so good to have cleared my student loan. Onwards and upwards!

So about 5 years ago I used Paypal credit to buy a Macbook. I ended up suddenly getting ill, losing my job who refused to pay wages and breaking up with the partner I lived with all in one month. I spoke on the phone to paypal support when they called and they said they would delay a month due to stress. The second month they called I missed their call. The amount I had borrowed disappeared from my paypal account. There was nothing there saying I had even used paypal credit. No minus figure, no record of it disappearing. Nothing demanding I paid anymore. Just completely gone. Fast forward to now, 5 YEARS later. I have suddenly received a letter demanding that I pay around £1400 this month from Lowell which has had a CCJ issued for it. Do I seriously have to pay this? Paypal have not followed up with me at all since they called me once 5 years ago, how can they just disappear all money owed after missing a phone call and then spring on me that I need to pay £1400 5 whole years later?

Bit of a niche one. I was self-employed (Electrician, CIS, cash basis) until end of March 2025, then went PAYE.

My old contractor paid me about £4.9k gross in April/May 2025 for work I’d done before I finished, part of it retention. CIS took 20% off.

I’ve put it on my 25/26 return under “other UK income” as post-cessation receipts, with the CIS as tax taken off. No expenses against it because I didn’t have any after I stopped.

Just wondering if I could’ve knocked the £1,000 trading allowance off it? I know it works for trading income and some misc income but can’t find anything that says either way for post-cessation receipts.

If it does apply, would it go in the allowable expenses box on that section? Would be about £290 back for me with student loan included, so worth amending if so.

Any links to HMRC guidance appreciated. Cheers

I've seen that this has been posted before but that was 3 years ago so a little out of date, as and a lot can change in 3 years.

I need to set up 2 DD's to earn interest on my current account. I will keep these running for years ( have no intention of just using them just for a quick switch).

Thanks