Saving tips and Finances
A place to discuss money matters, be it savings, investments, Tax or debt, feel free to contribute
Comments
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We only tend to do one year isa now , have gone with Virgin money this time,we may put some more in later as our joint current account balance keeps going up with my company pension and our state pensions going in even though its where all our bills are paid from
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Over past years I have moved money into ISA type products. A lot of those products permitted withdrawal at penalty and monthly income. I get more income than I need with such returns, pension and now state pension. Not a problem as the excess is taken up by a couple of regular savers which I can adjust as necessary.
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Over the years I have staggered OH's bonds etc and mine such that we have probably 4 bonds each running to end of term in every year.
I usually take longer term savings as in the past a 5 year ISA etc could earn twice the rate of a 1 year and if the money was needed the extra interest would cover the 4 extra months loss of interest.
If I need money however I have a number of investment ISAs that I can take money from without penalty
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One of the best investments we have is a few shares I was given. Always seem to pay about 5% of their value in dividend every year. However, not being the gambling type, I have never fancied investing further in shares.
Case in point, a news alert just popped up Toys R Us have just gone into administration.
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I have 3 ISA'a that are now out of their period and only earning 0.01% so have to decide what to do with them. Favourite is to build an extension to the kitchen which will add even more value to the bricks and mortar.
Best investment by far is our solar panels. Paid off the capital in 6 years now looking forward to another 19 years of tax free income which will total over £30k. Solar panel on the roof of my van won't nett me anything.
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The last of my long term ISA's matured at the end of November. The re-investment rate was so poor I decided to split the money between our sons, they may as well have it now while they and there children are young, rather than later when they won't need it.
We do still have other investments but not bringing in much in interest. I have recently switched one of my current accounts to gain from that.
We both have a 5% regular savings account with Nationwide but they have dropped the amount per month you can save from £500 to £250 still every little helps. Thanks to Martin Lewis I have re gigged a few accounts and now happy that they are working for me rather than the bank. Have passed on these tips to sons who hopefully will do likewise.
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Finding a decent return on savings is a rather tedious task these days. Mind you, now that they've turned off the QE tap, we might see some improvement in interest rates for savers.
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OH was just saying the same about the worrying amount of debt and the interest free cards.
We have one due to be repaid in October, I think, need to check on that. Meantime the money is earning 5% with Nationwide. Pity the rate only lasts one year.
With the new tax free savings allowance, the marriage allowance, and the fact that OH does not pay tax, we have abandoned ISAs in favour of interest bearing current accounts and the NS&I bonds.
And we have supplied funds to DD in the form of a private BTL mortgage. Favourable rates for both parties, so all good, and more flexible for her if/when she decides to sell up.
ISA annual allowances are much higher now, so easy enough to put the money back into those if rates improve.
We also invested in solar panels, so looking forward to that tax free income once ours are paid off, it takes a couple of years longer to reach that point up here.
Children and grandchildren get any surplus income, within what is allowed by IHT rules, new grand child arriving any minute so will need to organise something for him once we have the necessary paperwork.
Hope he does not decide to make his appearance while we have all this snow!
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We got our notice of increase in our State Pensions today. Works out about a 3% increase in total compared to last year which is better than some workers! Don't think our occupation pensions will go up as much, as last year the put a lower cap in place otherwise it would have been in line with RPI inflation.
David
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I think my occupational pension went up by about 1.2% last year, so it isn't always quite as rosy for us oldies as is suggested.
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Always a good idea to move excess funds out of your current account to a instant access savings account, even though interest is minimal from a risk point of view should you become targeted by a fraud attempt there will be less potentially at risk.
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Gov. money to banks to encourage lending has just ended. So hopefully interest rates for savers will pick up slightly because banks will need cash flow. Look out for better rates in the new tax year. Unfortunately borrowing rates will probably go up so fix now if you need to borrow.
I don't use credit cards but if I did I'd keep an eye on future rates.
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Not really an investment, but concerns money and I thought others might be interested.
3 years ago we bought a car from Toyota. Deposit, 36 monthly payments (interest free) of £145 and then pay a final sum, trade in for new vehicle, extend the finance at a cost or hand back. The variable direct debit we signed was certainly for 36 monthly payments, the first slightly larger for the admin fee.No mention of a final large one as clearly they don't want you to do that. The idea is of course you trade in or extend your credit agreement.
So we were rather surprised that when we finally got them to accept we wanted to pay the final sum, (that took multiple emails / phone calls) they said they would take the final £5,900 by the same means. I fully expected the bank to reject it as it is an extra payment and 40 times larger.
However, this morning on my on line banking it had gone through. So it would seem a variable direct debit is very variable indeed.
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Many years ago I purchased a car with a balloon payment at the end. The idea as Steve says was to use any residue of value towards a new car. Unfortunately I found the value left did not make it viable to follow that route as not only had the model changed they had gone up quite a bit in price so I was left with the only option of financing the balloon payment which felt like paying for the car twice. Fortunately I was more than happy with the car!!! Since then I have only purchased outright either by bank loan, from own resources or interest free credit.
David
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I/we have a number of credit cards between us. We share the use of an Asda CC account that gives us print off vouchers to spend in store. I have a Barclays cards that, among other possible options, allow me to claim credit for my Amazon purchases. (Recently putt £20 into my Amazon account in that way). Also have credit card that allows me to extend warranty on purchased white/electrical goods by two years FOC.
All of our cards are paid off in full by standing order/direct debit (whichever!) so no charges
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Personally I would never consider a PCP agreement, remember that the debt doesn’t die with you so beneficiaries would have to stump up the outstanding on the agreement. PCH is a rental agreement so the debt is non existent if you die, the car is just returned.
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Our joint current account has to have £2500 in it at the end of the month to receive the 3% interest, which is fine.
We also have a Loyalty instant access savings account with the same bank. Interest rate on the savings account is the same rate that an ISA is getting at the moment so not bad. We tend to keep most of our funds in the Loyalty because of this, easily moved from one account to another as same bank.
Other accounts with other banks picking up good interest rates all get 'funded' by the loyalty, SO's set up and money just gets moved around picking up interest.
A couple of CC each so plenty of available credit should we require it, gets paid off every month by DD, I rarely have cash in my purse these days, OH does usually have about £50 in his wallet just in case.
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