Best long-ish term ISA

Premium bonds are also 1.25% over the long-term, and are penalty-free instant access and tax-free to a £50k holding.

Note, the above is an observation and does not constitute financial advice. Your money, your choice, your risk.
 
Alastair said:
Premium bonds are also 1.25% over the long-term, and are penalty-free instant access and tax-free to a £50k holding.

Note, the above is an observation and does not constitute financial advice. Your money, your choice, your risk.
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i didnt think they got interest any more you just get the chance to win taz free prizes?
 
Mr Bump said:
i didnt think they got interest any more you just get the chance to win taz free prizes?
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There never was any interest on PB's. But with interest rates so low at the moment, the tax free wins you do get on the bonds are higher than just saving the money. Plus theres always that chance you might win a million. Ive been in them for 2 or 3 years and had a few 25, 50 and one 100, £300 odd or more in total. Never could have got that return on an isa. Plus the advantages Alastair mentions.
 
Premium bonds aren't up to much. Chances of winning any prize is so close to zero it's not worth it. The interest rate includes an average chance of winning a prize. I've some for years. Never won anything.

If you have any debt at all then pay that off first. That will earn you more than any ISA ever will.

Some current accounts offer decent interest rates so I'd check those out as well.
 
no debts, no mortage, so its all about savings for us.
most of my company money goes to me directors pension but i am slowly downsizing our lifes prior to retirement abroad.
the savings aspect is mainly from high value assets we are slowly moving on.
 
Mr Bump said:
i didnt think they got interest any more you just get the chance to win taz free prizes?
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The prize odds are based around an interest rate, currently the equivalent of 1.25%. A larger, longer-term PB holding will see a return of this rate. The prize odds are adjusted periodically and it's the little prizes that make up most of the return. PBs seemto get over-looked these days, perhaps because the National Lottery has confused people and they forget how PBs work.

But I'm with Suz - pay off any debt first.
 
Mr Bump said:
no debts, no mortage, so its all about savings for us.
most of my company money goes to me directors pension but i am slowly downsizing our lifes prior to retirement abroad.
the savings aspect is mainly from high value assets we are slowly moving on.
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We've had PB's for years (slowly accumulating them) & even when interest/saving rates were higher, we've always bettered it. Barely a month goes by without winning a little something. We've had 2 X £25 this month, but the highest single `win` £100, was a couple of years ago It's pot luck, but at least your money is safe & goes into the `draw` every month. The more you have the better the odds of winning something.

Good luck with your `downsizing` (we're going to start the long process next year too. Crete hopefully for us in 5 or 6 years)
 
OldCarlos said:
We've had PB's for years (slowly accumulating them) & even when interest/saving rates were higher, we've always bettered it. Barely a month goes by without winning a little something. We've had 2 X £25 this month, but the highest single `win` £100, was a couple of years ago It's pot luck, but at least your money is safe & goes into the `draw` every month. The more you have the better the odds of winning something.

Good luck with your `downsizing` (we're going to start the long process next year too. Crete hopefully for us in 5 or 6 years)
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spooky Crete is where we are heading :-)
 
Mr Bump said:
spooky Crete is where we are heading :)
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Brexit permitting. :D It might end up us living/renting there for part of the year, but keeping a base in the UK.

Which area?
 
OldCarlos said:
Brexit permitting. :D It might end up us living/renting there for part of the year, but keeping a base in the UK.

Which area?
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we are usnsure of area we fancy western crete but we plan another 3 week skirmish next year to start looking for a property.
we won't be moving perm for another 8 years ish but the prices are very low at the moment.

we also will end up with a small house as a base here, probably renting it out.
 
Mr Bump said:
we are usnsure of area we fancy western crete but we plan another 3 week skirmish next year to start looking for a property.
we won't be moving perm for another 8 years ish but the prices are very low at the moment.

we also will end up with a small house as a base here, probably renting it out.
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Some really good deals around for sure atm. (y)


We may well buy a small flat at the seaside in the UK, but as a `lock up & leave`. It'll probably be 6 yrs yet before we can retire, but like yourselves, need to start the slow process soon.
 
OldCarlos said:
Some really good deals around for sure atm. (y)


We may well buy a small flat at the seaside in the UK, but as a `lock up & leave`. It'll probably be 6 yrs yet before we can retire, but like yourselves, need to start the slow process soon.
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yes it is also about the mind set of setting sights smaller, less stuff for us is less valuables as well.
We also are thinking of an apartment as so little maintenacne.
 
Virgins share isa has historically done well.

Peer to peer lending might be worth a look also.
 
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Mr Bump said:
we are usnsure of area we fancy western crete but we plan another 3 week skirmish next year to start looking for a property.
we won't be moving perm for another 8 years ish but the prices are very low at the moment.

we also will end up with a small house as a base here, probably renting it out.
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As regular visitors to Crete, I can only whole heartedly agree with the Western end being the nicest. Food's better, people are more friendly, Chania airport means that "home" is still fairly easy to get to if necessary, tap water tastes better etc..
 
I've a minimal amount of premium bonds for years, never won a penny.
A couple of friend have over the last couple of years, thrown a lot of money into it, circa £25,000 each.
and for the first few months the returns were pretty damned good, always treble figures. Sometimes the odd one higher.
But recently that has tailed off to nothing....
I know its supposed to be random, but it It makes you think doesn't it?
 
Cobra said:
I've a minimal amount of premium bonds for years, never won a penny.
A couple of friend have over the last couple of years, thrown a lot of money into it, circa £25,000 each.
and for the first few months the returns were pretty damned good, always treble figures. Sometimes the odd one higher.
But recently that has tailed off to nothing....
I know its supposed to be random, but it It makes you think doesn't it?
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Indeed DUMP a wad in for 3 months then get it ALL out then do it again.....You may be surprised by the outcome
 
LASTOLITE said:
Indeed DUMP a wad in for 3 months then get it ALL out then do it again.....You may be surprised by the outcome
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The thought had crossed my mind TBH :)
 
Cobra said:
I've a minimal amount of premium bonds for years, never won a penny.
A couple of friend have over the last couple of years, thrown a lot of money into it, circa £25,000 each.
and for the first few months the returns were pretty damned good, always treble figures. Sometimes the odd one higher.
But recently that has tailed off to nothing....
I know its supposed to be random, but it It makes you think doesn't it?
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We tend to buy some every 3-4 months just to `rattle` ERNIE & refresh his memory of us. :D

LASTOLITE said:
Indeed DUMP a wad in for 3 months then get it ALL out then do it again.....You may be surprised by the outcome
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I'd say 6 months if you don't plan on leaving your money in, simply because you have to wait a full month after the month you bought them in, to get your numbers in the draw. (buying on the 30th Nov will get your numbers entered in the Jan draw) You can now have max £50k each if you can afford it.
 
Going by all the threads in talk equipment I'd go buy some fuji shares!
 
I was photographing some bankers recently. As often I asked them for financial advice (well, you have to talk about something). Consensus was that anybody putting money into a cash ISA is an idiot.

The tax changes mean that the first £1,000 of bank interest is tax free so if a regular savings account pays less than that (depends how much cash you have) then there's literally no advantage to a cash ISA. Meanwhile Nationwide and TSB are paying 5% on smallish amounts o money and by swapping around you can get a decent return even after paying tax. Also my Savings Certificates are currently paying 1.5 - 1.75% tax free with practically no withdrawal penalty (though these may not still be available). 1% easily available with instant access for a safe, dull investment. Lendinvest paying 6.5% if you fancy a flutter.

Mind you, they did also say that you want your money in a proper bank with FSCS guarantee - it's possible there is another UK bank crash coming. They weren't sure which one but it's possible in the medium term.
 
Bank crash wouldn't surprise me at all. Deutsche bank is definitely one that is a bit weak.
 
JonathanRyan said:
I was photographing some bankers recently. As often I asked them for financial advice (well, you have to talk about something). Consensus was that anybody putting money into a cash ISA is an idiot.

The tax changes mean that the first £1,000 of bank interest is tax free so if a regular savings account pays less than that (depends how much cash you have) then there's literally no advantage to a cash ISA. Meanwhile Nationwide and TSB are paying 5% on smallish amounts o money and by swapping around you can get a decent return even after paying tax. Also my Savings Certificates are currently paying 1.5 - 1.75% tax free with practically no withdrawal penalty (though these may not still be available). 1% easily available with instant access for a safe, dull investment. Lendinvest paying 6.5% if you fancy a flutter.

Mind you, they did also say that you want your money in a proper bank with FSCS guarantee - it's possible there is another UK bank crash coming. They weren't sure which one but it's possible in the medium term.
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If you've got a decent amount of savings then cash ISAs still make sense because they're still completely tax free and don't count towards the £1000 interest limit.

Some current accounts do give better interest rates but the ones I've looked at only pay it on the first £2.5k. They also charge a monthly fee to operate the account so they're not quite as attractive as they first look. Add that to the fact that they demand you pay a few direct debits out of the account each month to qualify and they don't make a lot of sense for some people.
 
However, by playing a bit of Monopoly and using the required DDs to pay the required amount into the other accounts, it's possible to earn the increased interest and avoid the fees by simply moving money from account to account. IIRC, there's a guide and schedule on one of the savings advice sites.
 
boogie man said:
If you've got a decent amount of savings then cash ISAs still make sense because they're still completely tax free and don't count towards the £1000 interest limit.
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Kind of. Unless I've missed a button on my calculator, you'd need to invest over £67K at 1.49% (First Direct's current new customer cash ISA rate - as a loyal customer they pay me rather less) to get £1K in interest. So if you have less than £67K in the bank a regular savings account is just as tax efficient as an ISA. Only at that level would you need to look at putting some in an ISA and some not. And bankers don't approve of that much cash lying around anyway ;)
 
[QUOTE="JonathanRyan, post: 7626892, member: 875" Meanwhile Nationwide and TSB are paying 5% on smallish amounts o money and by swapping around you can get a decent return even after paying tax. Also my Savings Certificates are currently paying 1.5 - 1.75% tax free with practically no withdrawal penalty (though these may not still be available).
[/QUOTE]

This is what I do, but with Club Lloyds instead. Currently I'm getting 3% interest which is okay, sadly the interest rate is going down to a flat 2% after christmas, but it is better than nothing
 
LCS said:
This looks interesting - may be just me being a muppet, but where is the interest rate mentioned?
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It's a bond/gilt fund. As such there's no "interest" rate. the fund will grow (or fall) in value. So of course your capital is at (smallish) risk and no return is guaranteed.
 
LCS said:
This looks interesting - may be just me being a muppet, but where is the interest rate mentioned?
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Its on themfind out more and performance tab
 
JonathanRyan said:
Unless I've missed a button on my calculator, you'd need to invest over £67K at 1.49% (First Direct's current new customer cash ISA rate - as a loyal customer they pay me rather less) to get £1K in interest. So if you have less than £67K in the bank a regular savings account is just as tax efficient as an ISA. Only at that level would you need to look at putting some in an ISA and some not.
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True at current interest rates - but should interest rates start to climb (to mirror the almost certain imminent rise in inflation) then you might wish you had utilized some of the previous years ISA allowances after all in order to have sheltered the interest from tax.
 
DeadpanDodo said:
True at current interest rates - but should interest rates start to climb (to mirror the almost certain imminent rise in inflation) then you might wish you had utilized some of the previous years ISA allowances after all in order to have sheltered the interest from tax.
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Yeah true. But when the base rate went down, savings rates went down and I haven't seen a single mortgage rate budge. The bankers may just have figured out they can get away with this ;)
 
OK started off the Virgin Money share ISA in wifes name this AM with £3k.
We are going to pop about £500 a month into that and see where it goes for a few years.
We went with Bonds and Gilts.
 
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