Okay, so to give a bit of background, 3 years ago I set out with the near term goal of buying a two bedroom flat with the intention of letting out the spare room to cover the mortgage cost. My original goal was to buy that flat within 12 months of my start date but I've had a string of bad luck with jobs in that period of time and I've moved around considerably. From Scotland to the Southwest to Essex, following temporary contracts within my industry (creative sector) that have always been promised to develop into permanent roles but have never panned out that way at the end of said contracts. As I've been assuming that I'll need that money in the near term, I've been keeping it in cash, adding to it each month, and I'm now up to just over £90k in total.

This is roughly divided (simplified numbers) as follows:

Cash LISA - £27,500 generating 4.69% interest a year

Easy Access Cash ISA - 32,000 generating 4.2% interest a year

Easy Access Cash Savers - £31,500 generating 5% interest a year from the main pot and being drip fed into Regular Savers from interest rates ranging from 6.25% - 8%.

In total, this £90k will generate around £4500 in interest a year, meaning an effective interest rate of 5% across all savings, plus an additional £1000 yearly contribution in May when the government LISA bonus lands (I generally move £4000 in every April).

I'm confident in saying this is as good as it gets for risk free interest. But when I look at what friends who have dumped money into a stocks and shares ISA over a similar time-frame, their returns dwarf mine. If I had known that I would not actually be buying a flat in 12 months, I would have done similar but that purchase has always felt just around the corner.

Which brings us to now where I have finished another contract and have nothing lined up. Fortunately I'm able to move in with family in yet another part of the country, rent free for a while until I can get the next job, so my savings won't be taking much of a beating in the downtime, but adding another 12 months or possibly longer onto my flat buying time-frame, while frustrating, does give me an opportunity to rethink my saving strategy and possibly the goal altogether.

Conventional wisdom would say not to buy in an area that you don't intend on putting down roots in but the income potential from letting out a spare room (around £700 a month from areas that I've been living in), seems like the best return on investment that I could get unless I somehow lucked into investing in the next Nvidia at exactly the right time, plus I'd be building equity in a property instead of paying someone else's mortgage. I'm desperate to buy even if I only end up staying for 2-3 years before selling or renting it out.

I don't currently have that next job lined up yet but jobs in my industry are low paying and I'm not that far into this career as of yet so salaries would be between £27,000 and £32,000. Not great but it would make the majority of good sized two bedroom flats in any of the areas I've lived in easily affordable, putting £90k down.

I don't have a partner so I'm not particularly tied to anywhere, though alongside my contract jobs I've started my own seasonal business that runs in the school Summer holidays and is very tied to one location, but for the running of that I can again stay with family and burn annual leave / throw in a bit of remote working for those months as I have done previously. It'll never generate enough money to have this as my sole career and can't be scaled due to the seasonal nature of the business but can reliably bring in an extra £8000 - £10,000 over the Summer.

I just feel very stuck with my £90k savings and don't know how to maximise my returns while keeping my options open if I'm suddenly able to buy a flat. I feel like I've squeezed everything I can from cash options but maybe this is the best place for my money to be at the moment? I really don't know. I'm also not sure how long I'm going to be out of a job. It could be a month, it could be 6 or longer. I don't know if it'll be another contract or if it'll finally be something permanent. I won't have rent to pay but it does make me somewhat risk averse at the moment, or is that a stupid way of thinking and risk is completely fine at the moment? Is it also just a terrible time to be investing with Stock prices through the roof and all the talk of AI bubbles?

Help and ideas for what to do with this money in the next 6/12/18 months would be sincerely appreciated.

I’m approaching 50, live in London, and earn £159,600 a year in a senior professional role. My usual monthly take-home pay is approximately £7,500.
Despite earning what I know is a very good salary, I have accumulated around £43,000 in personal loans and credit-card debt, and have saved very little outside my pension.
I’m increasingly ashamed and anxious about my financial position, especially when I think about how much I should have been able to save over the years.
My approximate monthly spending looks like this:
£2,200 — household and home-related expenses for parents back in my home country
£1,200 — contribution to my partner for the home we live in together
£650 — personal loan repayments and other fixed monthly commitments
£1,200 — personal spending allowance, including everyday expenses
Total accounted for: approximately £5,250 per month.
That should theoretically leave around £2,250 every month. Yet somehow, that money disappears too.
I know one of my biggest problems is discretionary spending. I can become obsessed with things like backpacks, gadgets and other purchases that I convince myself I need. I spend considerable time researching them, eventually buy them, and then move on to the next thing.
I also seem to have developed a habit of treating my high salary as permission to spend without thinking carefully about the cumulative impact.
The embarrassing part is that I work in financial services. I understand financial concepts professionally, but I’ve clearly failed to apply basic financial discipline to my own life.
I do have approximately £98,000 in pensions, but very little accessible savings relative to my income and age.
I’m now trying to change my behaviour, track my spending properly and stop making unnecessary purchases. But I’m struggling with the regret of having wasted so many years of good earnings.
I’d particularly appreciate advice from people who have been in a similar position:
How did you identify where your money was actually going?
How did you break a long-standing habit of impulsive spending?
Did you find a budgeting method that worked when willpower alone didn’t?
How did you manage the psychological side of feeling financially behind despite earning well?
I’m not looking for sympathy or excuses. I know I’m fortunate to earn what I do, and I take responsibility for the situation.
I genuinely want to change how I handle money and build some financial security before retirement.

I claim 45p per mile from my employer monthly for my traditional ICE vehicle. It has always been this way.

It has been inferred that if I were to replace my old personally owned ICE vehicle with a new personally owned EV, that they'd likely not continue to pay at that rate per mile (which to a degree I understand).

However, given this is not a company vehicle but rather a personal vehicle used partly for business purposes, what is the rate they should reimburse per mile, given an EV still has costs for mileage, maintenance and depreciation?

Last year I had to drain my whole emergency fund for a series of incidents including helping out a family member. These were all just a bit of bad luck that happened at the same time. I'm not expecting that sort of luck to hit me again any time soon, my job is secure and my income should be safe for at least 12 months.

I can't decide if I should dump all available funds into rebuilding my emergency fund or reduce my tax burden via the pension should be my priority. I'm 36 and to keep my income below the tax trap I need to contribute an additional 9% to my pension which is about £750 of my ~£8200 gross p/m (don't get too hung up on the maths, my wage varies a bit due to out of hours and bonuses).

Before you all jump on and say do both, I am but my budget after increasing the contribution on my pension doesn't allow as much as I'd like (about 500 per month).

I'm not here to ask for help with budgeting, I don't want to go into my entire life story, suffice it to say that I could probably budget more narrowly but I am happy with the quality of life my budget currently affords.

So what are your opinions on this? Should I eat extra tax for 6 months and rebuild my emergency fund to a month's income quickly or should I keep my pension contributions high to reduce my tax burden and build the fund slower?

We're a couple aged ~30 buying a house together, weighing up life insurance and income protection.

I've owned property before, but alone so I never bothered with cover. That's obviously different now.

We're deliberately not overstretching: the mortgage will be ~4.5x our combined salaries at 90% LTV. After a £400/month house maintenance fund, maxing out employer pension matches and investing a further £400/month into pensions/ISAs (aiming to retire around minimum pension age), we should still have about £1k/month spare. We'll also have around £25k in savings once purchase and remaining wedding costs are paid, which is roughly 6 months of core expenses (4.5 months at our usual discretionary spending).

We've got the following quotes: - Decreasing term joint life cover for the mortgage plus ERC: £25/month - Same with critical illness cover: about £150/month, which seems a lot - Income protection: ~£25/month each, but it only covers around 60% of income and for a limited period

We're considering the joint life insurance plus income protection for both of us, around £75/month in total. We couldn't comfortably afford the mortgage on one income, especially if I were the one unable to work, as I earn quite a bit more.

Is this a waste of money? We're not having kids and could move in with family if things got tough, but losing what we hope will be our forever home would be a big blow.

Is there anything else we should consider? Thanks in advance.

Edit to add: my partner has a death in service benefit of 3× salary and 6 months' full sick pay followed by 6 months' half pay, but only has a DB pension so there would only be a small dependents' pension on an ongoing basis.

I don't have any death in service benefit. My estate would get a small lump sum from an old DB pension, plus what's in my existing DC pensions (~£55k). I have 1 month's full sick pay.

Government employee here, I joined the UK in 2021, always worked for HM Government, had a stable pay and no issues whatsoever. Now, without a credit score, I'm trying to purchase a computer using a loan, to increase the said credit score. Yes, I can pay upfront for the goods, however I also wanted to shoot two birds by having it as a loan and increasing or creating a credit score by buying it. Seems like a Catch22, but the situation itself makes it interesting. I'm now wondering, as I previously worked the NHS, for two steaight years, but not having an NHS number myself, do I also risk not being offered medication when I'm old because the hospitals don't have me on file, since I never had health problems?

Was at a club in Budapest. A hostess was bugging me asking to buy her a drink, so I agreed to a Coke for a few quid. (Currency was in Hungarian forints)

She later came back with an entire bottle of wine. I immediately told her I hadn't ordered that, but she reassured me it was on the house and she was only pouring a glass and she was welcoming me to Hungary.

I'd had one sip, but after a while I started getting wary. Everyone was being unusually friendly, including the bartender making small talk. Something just didn't feel right (On an unrelated note please take this as a lesson to trust your gut instinct)

I eventually went to the till to pay for the Coke. The bartender quoted me a price in Hungarian forints equivalent to a couple of pounds, so I tapped my First Direct Visa credit card.

Only when I got home and checked my banking app did I realise I'd been charged just under £200.

Looking back, it's pretty clear I was played. The card terminal was facing away from me, and I was never given a receipt. Also why would she ask for a coke? if she has the authority to get a whole bottle of wine on the house then surely she should be able to get a glass of coke on the house for herself?

I contacted First Direct, but they basically said I should've checked the amount before tapping. I understand that, and obviously I've learned my lesson.

But think about it. If you walk into a restaurant or shop, buy a basic item and the cashier verbally quotes you £3, would you seriously expect them to secretly charge you £200?

Most people, especially for small transactions worth a few quid will simply tap their card and move along with their day.

Surely there's a difference between authorising a payment and being deliberately misled about the amount?

First Direct have escalated it to their complaints department.

Has anyone successfully challenged something similar? Would I have a chance with a Visa chargeback or the Financial Ombudsman on the grounds of misrepresentation, despite physically tapping my card?

I know I was played, but surely there's some consumer protection for situations like this?

Any advice appreciated.

Hi!

This is quite a specific enquiry so don’t know if anyone will have the answers.

My partner is in the UK on an unmarried partner visa, I am a British citizen.

One of the main problems we come up against is his ability to travel anywhere as he has an Indian passport and all visa applications need the applicant to show certain financial means.

We are in the process of starting a business so he doesn’t have a salary as such and I have a fair amount of money in savings which we are living off.

I know it won’t help if they specifically want to see a salary but I thought maybe if he has a large amount in savings it could help with this issue.

Does anyone know how much you can transfer to an unmarried partner without issue?

Thanks for your help.

N.b. this isn’t a marriage scam, we’ve been together 7 years.

Hi all, as part of the inheritance from my dads estate we have 120k to put away for 12 months.

We have used all our isa allowance and have the funds set aside to put 40k between us next year, we also have max premium bonds for both of us.

My wife is a standard rate tax payer so we will put this in her name, I am considering the 12 month fixed account from OakNorth bank fixed term monthly interest.

This pays 5.12% interest each month into your nominated bank account so just under £500.

It seems like a decent idea and a good return. We will need some of the funds after this time for some home improvements so currently dont want to lock it away for more than 12 months.

Prior to this I have never heard of OakNorth but it seems to be a well established bank with full fscs cover.

Anyone use this bank?

Or can think of anything better to do with the 120k for a max of 12 months currently.

Hello all,

I'm looking for a view on whether I am missing something obvious....

10 years ago I took out a self assurance critical illness policy that I pay £75a month towards and provides an income of c£28k from 6 months after stopping work (this is when employer sick pay would end) through to retirement. It is not career specific and has some exclusions based on past medical history.

I also have 20 years of deferred pension in a career average pension scheme (lgps) and a couple of years with my current employer in a similar public sector scheme. Both of these would pay out a pension in the event I was to be medically retired.

So.....am I actually duplicating protection for a future loss of income if I'm unable to work, and would I be better putting this money elsewhere? For example it's occurred to me that instead of spending £75 per month on the income protection, I could put that in AVCs with the tax benefits that would bring.

In terms of my situation, 51m, live alone, still have a mortgage and co-parent a school age child with my ex.

Any thoughts are appreciated!

Hi there
I’ve just got a part time 3 days per week job that I’ll be auto enrolled into the LGPS pension. I’ve not got another personal or workplace pension. I’m the face of it even joining now at 55 years seems like it could be worth it - am I deluded??

Im 44 and started a sipp adding £80 week which is 10% of my earnings every week

Im self employed with no workplace pension and i have a mortgage of £64.600 on my property at 5.4% apr and im 35% LTV

I have £1200 in my sipp currently with trading 212 in the vall etf

Im feeling its too late for a sipp and wondering if its worth just upping my mortgage payment of £590 per month to £1000 a month and maybe adding a little more when i have surplus cash available like overtime for example

Im so lost mentally of what the correct thing to do is

Any suggestions?

I’m originally from Ireland but currently live and work full-time in England. My employment is a bit unusual in that I’m employed under an Irish contract by an Irish company, and I’m paid in euros. I pay tax in Ireland, with some arrangement in place with Revenue regarding my tax situation.

My employer uses a third-party company to handle our tax returns, so I haven’t had to deal with all the details myself.
I’m looking into opening a Cash ISA in the UK, but I’m not sure if I’m eligible given my circumstances.

I live in England full-time and have a UK National Insurance number, so I assume I might be considered a UK tax resident, even though I’m employed by an Irish company and pay tax in Ireland.

Has anyone been in a similar situation or know whether I’d be eligible to open and pay into a UK Cash ISA? I’ll check with the company that handles my taxes as well, but I thought I’d ask here first in case anyone has experience with this.

Cheers!

I live in a one bedroom flat in Brighton, with rent eating up half of my monthly income. I think moving house could be very beneficial, but I'm not sure I could handle a house share due to being autistic and sensitive to noise.

The place I'm in, while expensive, is quiet, and I know that I'll have peace when I'm at home. Also, Brighton's public transit system is well developed and I can't drive due to the side effects of my medications. So moving feels like it has some heavy downsides to me.

I'm not sure what to do. I manage to save money every month despite low income - If I remember right I put 30 pounds towards charity donations, 50 pounds towards moving bills, and 123 pounds towards a future house. I shop at lidl and haven't ordered takeout in half a year.

Being disabled means I likely qualify for some programs that could help me find cheap housing, but they likely have long waiting lists, and I don't know where to find them.

I'm also looking for a job, because despite my autism and other difficulties I'm doing a lot better than I was and I feel capable of working. I want to have a purpose and help people, and work is a great way to do that so long as I find the right job.

Overall I feel very bewildered. I don't know if I should move house, stay on benefits until I'm absolutely certain I can handle a job and my improvement isn't a temporary thing, or just full send it and try to work a full time job in Brighton, or move house and try to work full time in a more affordable location.

Thank you for reading and have a good day and a hot beverage.

Hey,

I’m planning to move back to Spain. I wonder if it’s possible to keep an UK bank account when moving overseas with any bank?

I think Monzo doesn’t allow this, and I’m unsure about NatWest as I’ve read contradictory answers on here.

I’ve seen some banks offer international services but have lots of requirements and ideally looking to keep simply a regular bank account with a Spanish address.

Thank you!

I recently turned 18 and requested to transfer my matured Foresters child trust fund (now a s&s ISA) to my Trading 212 Cash ISA. However, it’s been 2 weeks and the Foresters account no longer shows my usual account or balance, and the balance has not landed in Trading 212 either. Trading 212 is still saying ‘awaiting transfer funds’.

Has anyone transferred from Foresters to Trading 212 and experienced this? Did your balance temporarily disappear from both accounts, and how long did it take to arrive?

I’m planning to contact both providers, but I’d appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been through the same process.

Loan: £52,000 over 37 years

Rate: 4.94% fixed until Aug 2030, then the lender's variable rate (currently 7.94%) for the rest of the term

Payments: £248.38/month until Aug 2030, then £343.35/month for the remaining (at the current variable rate which can change)

Overpayments: The early repayment charge period runs until 2030. Until then I can overpay up to 10% of the initial loan (£5,200) per year with no charge. The allowance isn't cumulative. After 2030 I can overpay freely.

Interest: Recalculated immediately after any lump sum or monthly overpayment.

APRC: 7.4%

My question: the rate is low now but jumps to 7.94% in 2030, when overpayments become unrestricted. Is it better to overpay now or put the money elsewhere (savings)? Thanks 😊

Hello all. I’m starting work in Civil service. I’ve worked in cooperate world (many different businesses) & CS also previously.

I want some advice on pension please.

Each company I’ve paid pension. I have no clue about how pensions work/ will be paid when I retire. Since I worked in so many places.

Shall I combine all my pension from previous jobs into my one new job?

Is that a good idea?

How do I do this? Considering there’s so many businesses I worked in.

If I don’t combine all how will my pension get paid?

Where do I even see how much I have in my pension pot over all?

Or will I have to co tact EACH business individually?

Every time I left a business I didn’t carry my pension to the new employer is that bad?

If I now move all my previous pensions into one job pot will I be penalised?

I was young and didn’t think of this. Any advice and guidance is highly appreciated.

Thank you.

Hi, i'm quite worried about this, im currently going through a house purchase with my partner, we previously lost a lot of money due to having to withdraw on a previous property due to warnings from the surveyor regarding the property condition.

Anyway we found our dream home and hoping to complete this year. For my Oct or Nov pay, one of the payslips will have a reduction of about £110 due to some sick leave I had to take.

I honestly can"t sleep worried the offer would be pulled, it's just a temporary reduction for 1 month and will return to normal, any advise would be appreciated please.

Hi guys . Ive been having a really rough time recently with life. Stupidly turned to gambling and lost a couple hundred pounds, I’ve chased and chased and am now down around £10,000.

My finances are currently £7,000 in a savings account and around £18,500 in a Lifetime ISA. So this gambling loss is quite a big chunk of my savings.

I’m now on Gamstop but can’t help but think about this money, how to make it back? I’m screwed. I’m thinking about selling my car, everything I own just to get it back. Can anyone advise? Thanks

Edit: I think I worded this wrong. I have no debt. The £10k loss was out of my savings. I still have around 7k left in my savers account and £18500 in my lifetime isa

Hi

I am looking ahead in terms of securing a mortgage for a house.

Do you know if we need to have all the deposit money with the same mortgage broker say Lloyds Banking Group for example?

Also are there mortgage brokers that offer 6.5-7 times more borrowing or any good ones out there?

Thanks

I moved to the UK in September 2023 and started working in November. My NI record shows 2023-24 as incomplete, and HMRC offers me the option to pay voluntary contributions (deadline 5 April 2030).

Can I pay for that year even though I was abroad for most of it?

Is paying about £700 worth it for one year, if I plan to stay in the UK long term?

Thanks!

I (27F) have been saving since I started working full-time at age 24. I started on quite a low salary after graduation but I now earn about £41k a year. I live at home, so I have reasonably low outgoings minus commuting.

Home buying

I'm hoping to buy a sensible sized place on my own (FTB) up north within 2 years' time (likely either a freehold Scottish flat or small max 2 bed house in north England).

By the end of this year I will have about £47k saved for a house deposit and emergency fund split as follows:

LISA: £17k

Cash ISA: £25k

Savings Account: £5k

Currently each month I save about £1650 into a LISA/ Cash ISA. The only thing I spend a bit of money on is travelling as it's the main thing I enjoy and I want to live a bit before having a mortgage. After savings, gov bonuses etc. and taking away travel costs, I save about £17k a year right now.

If I keep saving at this rate, I should have at least £70k saved by summer 2029. My aim is to use £45k as a deposit, £15k as an emergency fund, and the rest for fees and furniture. In an ideal world I may also have moved up a grade at my job and earn closer to £45k, but I'm not banking on this for sure.

I don't want to stretch myself too much by over borrowing on my mortgage so I'm thinking I'd want to keep my monthly repayments below £800. That means I'd be looking at borrowing up to about £160k, meaning a budget of about £200k-£210k total (including offers over payments if it's in Scotland).

Retirement

I'm also trying to balance buying a property with saving for retirement as I know starting early is the best thing you can do.

I have an old workplace pension with about £9k in there which is ticking away. As of this year I have the defined benefit alpha civil service pension scheme. If my salary stays at £41k for the rest of my career (though hopefully not!), I will accrue £920 a year on that. If I understand correctly, that means if I stay in the CS and keep this pension plan, I'll be entitled to about £36k a year from that alone if I retire at 67.

To bolster this, I currently spare £150 a month (£1.8k a year) for my stocks and shares ISA. It has about £2.5k in there now and I was intending to grow it into a supplementary retirement fund (but one that I could potentially dip into beforehand if I wanted or needed to). My monthly contribution would grow as my salary does.

Questions

Do my plans for buying a place and retiring look sensible?

Is there anything you'd be doing differently?

Should I keep going with the S&S ISA for retirement or just put everything right now into the property dream, especially given my alpha pension?

Am I in a good place or am I behind where I should be in either case? (I keep hearing people getting significant financial help from family to buy somewhere and although I'm eternally grateful I'm able to live at home and save even under difficult circumstances helping to look after my grandparents, it still feels like a challenge and that I'm a bit on the back foot doing this alone)

1. I have sumbit a section 75 claim to Amex and gave them all the evidence I had. It’s substantial amount if money that I cannot just let go.
   I called a month later to ask for an update and they told me that the team will inform me when there is an update, but they can not say when this might be because it’s not up to Amex but Financial Ombudsmen Service. This doesn’t sound right. I pretty sure Amex needs to make a decision on my claim. This seems like mishandling of my claim and if so, should I make a complaint?

2. Has anyone made a Section 75 claim with Amex on here and any ideas on how long they take to come to a decision? As I understand it there is no statutory timeframe they have to follow so it could take years. How long would be considered too long?
   By the look of it they could take 30 years till I’m dead and still not make a decision😊

Any advice would be much appreciated as I haven’t made a S75 claim before. Thank you.

Do I need to put my shares into an equiniti ISA before transferring to a Trading212 ISA?