Money thoughts …

We got our normal round result. With rising interest rates and my good luck I really should look elsewhere. Was hoping the savings interest allowance would be raised.
 
I ahvent won more than 150 in a month... its got 2 more moths to finish a full year then decide what to do
 
Not that I expect anyone to disclose their holding, but it would be interesting to see what the winning is as a ratio.
Oh and its 100 quid for us this month, worth it just for the fun and little treats we buy with any winnings.
 
For the current 6 month period (that my app shows) I am at 0.125%. To be fair I was ahead of the current rate at the time last year but since then it has been dire - just one £25 and that was in December. Last year we won something most months.
 
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Not that I expect anyone to disclose their holding, but it would be interesting to see what the winning is as a ratio.
Oh and its 100 quid for us this month, worth it just for the fun and little treats we buy with any winnings.

for the 7 months I can see in the app, I'm running at 2.6%, which extrapolated out over the year is the equivalent of 4.46%. For comparison I tied my cash ISA up for 2 years last december at 4.11%
 
for the 7 months I can see in the app, I'm running at 2.6%, which extrapolated out over the year is the equivalent of 4.46%. For comparison I tied my cash ISA up for 2 years last december at 4.11%


nationwide 1 yr bond is now 4.10% thats my choice if ernie doesn't buck up his ideas in next 2 mths :)
 
Leeds Building Society offering 4.45% in 1 year bonds and 4.77% on 1 year fixed cash ISA's and 5.25% on 18 months.


wow thats good.. tempted to do it now :) thinking hat on...

wife worried about the taxman and she loves the draw...... me i have my logical head on :)
 
wow thats good.. tempted to do it now :) thinking hat on...

wife worried about the taxman and she loves the draw...... me i have my logical head on :)

Actually, I've just opened a Fixed term savings account with Natwest.

1 Year at 5.55% and 2 years at 5.65%


I already had a current account with them and it looks like you need a to open a current account with them too if you don't have one.

Tax man was my issue so I've setup 2 x Cash Isa's with Nationwide at 5.1% for my wife and I, plus the account above and then a instant access savings account at 2.5% for the money that I don't want to tie up. We'll pay a bit of tax but the majority will be tax free over the term.
 
Virgin Money have a 1 year cash ISA at 5.05%
The rate is fixed but if you really need to withdraw some funds you only lose 60 days interest on the amount withdrawn.
I think this is a better option for those that don't want to tie up funds for the full period.

It's this one
 
Afternoon all,

Thought it was time I gave a little update, the threads still busy which is nice and as others have said it’s hard to see what’s real when you don’t see what’s behind it so will give as much detail as possible.

So back at the end of 2021/start of 2022 I had about 15/20k saved up. No real debt other then the mortgage which due to other circumstances was in a good place.

So after my own research and readings I put some money away in premium bonds circa 10k which was my safe option and out about 8k into a newly opened shares isa (split roughly equally 4k worth in two company’s) my riskier play.

Where are we now a year and 7months layer well … my pbs haven’t really done much I’m at maybe 1 win every three months and totals about 500 quid so that sits around 10.5k

My shares are doing ok one company has grown by 1.5k steadily and no signs of dropping. The other it’s more up and down currently is about 300 quid up.

So overall I’m up by say 2.3k over around 18months.

Do I want more? sure it would be nice right… but realistically I did very little and have some profit.

I’m now back to looking at the next step, I have more savings from saving my disposable income the pbs are not really doing much and savings account seem more attractive.

Thanks for reading my ramblings hope it helps someone at some point.

Thanks Tom
 
individual shares are, imo and i'm no expert, a very risky venture with such little diversity. My S&S ISA is made up of 7 funds through Fidelity (other providers are available) and these further diversified into ETF's and what I understand to be a more traditional "growth" fund (bit unclear on what these are called tbh), with a safety net of gold. Following this path I've seen steady growth of above 10% PA for about 8 or 9 years excluding last year where there was a bit of a disaster for every form of investing.

I would suggest you consider that route unless your appetite for risk leaves you comfortable with your current approach. Your decision obviously and please don't take this as advice, it's merely an observation as the financial world leaves me dazed and confused more often than not :)
 
I would suggest you consider that route unless your appetite for risk leaves you comfortable with your current approach.

My problem and I suspect many at pension age is.. the money I have in savings is it... If I was to lose any I cant really build it back up again ..If I was younger then the risk isnt as scary as you can rebuild.. theres not that much opportunity to rebuild or save up again nowerdays at a certain age :)
 
I see most of the fixed 1 year ISA deals are now at or near 5 to 5.5%
 
My problem and I suspect many at pension age is.. the money I have in savings is it... If I was to lose any I cant really build it back up again ..If I was younger then the risk isnt as scary as you can rebuild.. theres not that much opportunity to rebuild or save up again nowerdays at a certain age :)
very much the case, mine was a conscious decision to make my own arrangements for retirement funding as it became practical for me to start saving at the time of the murdoch pension scandals which destroyed any trust I had in institutionalised savings. Diversifying means you may not get the best possible returns, but equally you shouldn't suffer the worst of disasters......
 
I have a bit less than two hours before I am probably officially still not a millionaire. I can but hope and will likely delay looking at the app until mid morning just to keep the dream alive. # Schrödinger
 
£150. (2x£25 and 1x£100) That's it a full year 12 draws giving me a total return of 1.6%. I can get 5.50% tax free if I move it so that's my last premium bond draw... I enjoyed the whole draw thing but losing too much money :(
 
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Me £150
Wife £100
 
We withdrew a lot of our PB's last month to fully fund 2 cash ISAs @ 5.1% but we still had £20k in PB across two accounts which we decided to leave for another month. I won £25 this month and the wife nothing.

The PB accounts were emptied this morning to fund a 2 year fixed term account at 5.7%

I've also moved most of the cash from our business and personal chequing accounts to a flexible savings account paying 3%

Calculations says we should earn around £5.2k over the next 12 months which is waaaaaay more than PB have paid out over the last couple of years.
 
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I am sure that you are aware that each UK taxpayer has an annual personal savings allowance tax free of £1000. Anything over that, outside of an ISA, is taxable at the appropriate rate. With fixed rate bonds paying 5% plus it is fairly easy to hit that.

I believe that Premium Bond interest is not counted.
 
"The personal savings allowance (PSA) lets most people earn up to £1,000 in interest without paying tax on it. At current savings rates, you'd need to have just over £20,000 in the top easy-access savings account to exceed the allowance."

One issue is that ISA rates are sometimes easily bettered by quite ordinary accounts so it might be worth doing the sums and even if you end up paying the tax you might still come out on top by choosing something that isn't an ISA. I don't have any bonds at the moment. I used to but these days it can be difficult to even guess what's going to happen to interest rates so more recently I haven't bothered with them. I do still check everything once a month.

Premium bond winning are not taxed. I got £150 this month but I do believe that for me they don't really make a good financial case longer term but I think they're worth it for the fun and suspense factors.
 
I am sure that you are aware that each UK taxpayer has an annual personal savings allowance tax free of £1000. Anything over that, outside of an ISA, is taxable at the appropriate rate. With fixed rate bonds paying 5% plus it is fairly easy to hit that.

I believe that Premium Bond interest is not counted.

We are aware of that which is why we have structured the savings in the way they are.

The Cash ISA's are tax free with a £20k/annum limit so we each have one of those
Our fixed terms savings is a joint account which will just about eat into each of our £1k savings limit.

That means we will have to pay the appropriate tax on the the Flexible savings account which is also a joint account. My wife works part time and generally doesn't earn over the tax threshold so she will have no tax to pay on her portion.

So all in all, I'll have to pay tax on 50% of the interest from the flexible savings account. Nothing we can do about that. I'll still much better off than having it all in PB's
 
I have little idea how much folk are likely to have in savings and no idea if £20k each in non ISA accounts is significant. Everyone to their own.

£20k @5.7% = £1140 therefore a theretical liability on £140 - but remember that £1k is across all your non ISA savings e.g. current account / bonds etc and I know that these can add up swiftly with higher rates starting to be offered on non fixed interest savings.

@ecoleman mentioned £5.2k earning on interest - with other puddles of interest that liability for tax is starting to add up.
 
Taxes have to be paid, that's life. It's not a reason not to have savings.

From the 5.2k, £2040 of that is tax free from the two Cash ISA's
Interest on the Fixed Term savings is approx £1680 which split between my wife and I is £840 each, leaving us £160 left from our £1k limit.
The flexible savings interest is £1500, so £750 each, less the £160 available on our limit which leaves £590 taxable interest each.

My wife will probably not pay tax as she's under the tax threshold.

I will pay tax on either £560 or £1060 depending on what sort of year I have and whether or not I fall in the 20% or 40% tax bracket for the year. 40% tax bracket only has £500 interest free limit, so at best I'll pay £112 tax (20% of £560) tax and at worst I'll pay £424 tax (40% of £1060).
 
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