The Money Saving Thread

Totally not an expert, but if you're planning to save for the longer term, stick it in a Stocks&Shares ISA rather than a Cash one.
There's a reason all the rich are getting richer, and it's mainly because they have all their money in stocks.

Having said that, interest rates on the cash ones seem pretty good at the moment though. No idea how long that'll last as I assume it's tied to inflation.

They sounded scary back in the day when I opened my first ISA, so I just got a cash one. If I'd opened a stocks one back then I'd be bloody loaded now.

If it's a long term investment, and if you're paying in regularly, some basic index fund or etf that tracks the market will do great.

If you plan to take out the money in a year or so, a stocks one might not be a good idea, as they can go up and down quite a bit in the short term, but the longer term trend is pretty much always up.

PS/ Someone was talking about an age-limited one where the government will top it up if you open it before a certain age. I forget the details though. That might be well worth a look if you're young enough. 

www.gov.uk/lifetime-isa if by any chance you're still under 40. Seems like a great deal, in my uninformed opinion.

PS/ Stocks sound scary and complex, but they're really not these days. Best option is to pay in a monthly amount, that way you're spreading your investment over time and not so affected by short term changes. Loads of challenger banks etc.. do very simple ones now.

Check with someone else though, as I don't know what I'm talking about

Someone on here definitely used it though.

Definitely sign up to it before you're 40, but before you put any money in just remember you can only use it for a house that is £450k or lower and has to also be both you and your partner's first property. Otherwise you can use it for retirement, but may get a better return putting money into a pension and stocks.

As for ISAs, check on money saving expert for banks with the best rates. Might be worth locking the money away for a year at a good fixed interest rate, if you don't need access to it now.

They should teach this stuff at school (though kids will probably ignore it)

Yes they should. A life skill.

Anyway, you can earn upto £1,000 tax free in interest as a 20% tax payer so you'd need a fair bit of cash to even get near £1,000 in interest over the tax year with the rates being so low. If you are a 40% tax payer I believe the threshold is lower.


If you are lucky enough to be earning over 1k in interest over a year then absolutely get an ISA as it'll be tax free.

Alternative savings account to just have a quick look at would be Chase, an excellent app and current account and savings rates tend to be ok especially for new customers and they offer 1% cashback on purchases and a save the change thing so it rounds up to the nearest whole pound and sticks in a little pot earning 5% interest which you can get back ever 12 months. It's not much but adds up and finally it's a great card to spend abroad as they don't charge an exchange fee.

As for ISA, check out trading 212. They do a stocks and shares for those that feel comfortable locking in for the long term but they now offer a fully flexible cash ISA that's about 5%. It's not fixed though.

I've had the trading 212 account for a few months and stuck just under £7.5k and the interest is calculated daily for a £1 a day return (£30 a month in interest basically)

To get their hands on your money!

I dont understand the regulatory status of Trading. They aren't a bank, they don't disclose who or where they are holding the customer funds. Eg, Chip uses clearbank, and the funds are held at the BoE.

I was tempted by Trading 212, but it's not exactly a million miles from what I have now. I suppose if you're looking to squeeze every penny.

Sony deffo helped me out raising games to £70, they fecked me right off buying them

Anyone wondering who Trading 212 hold money with for cash ISAs it's split across Barclays, JP Morgan and NatWest who are all part of the FSCS so money is protected upto 85k. A bit less if you have funds with one of these banks already.

Not sure how that would fall under an issue of insurance. The tree stump was there 6 months ago and before so I doubt they’d pay out.

Anyone done unoccupied insurance before? My mums is up for renewal and it's £315 which seems pretty steep.. but then it's a risk that it's unoccupied I suppose?

Squatters, burglaries, animal infestations etc..

Are we helping settle the nerves?