Saving advice for a financially !!!!!! 18 year old please.

The "advisor" is talking rubbish!

On the 6th April you can open another ISA with whoever you like. Your current ISA can stay put where it is earning interest or you can move it to somewhere that does accept transfers - your choice.

scott lawrence, it's looking to me as though you've lots of extra income and a maxi stocks and shares ISA could be most appropriate, with 7000 limit this year, 7200 next. Nothing wrong with some short term borrowing to fully use the 7000 this year if that's what it takes. The better funds in the medium risk UK equity income sector have returned around 15% each year, way more than savings accounts. But also much more variation year to year. The long term average for UK and for world has been around 12%, but it's possible to do better than average.

I'm assuming that you don't need the money for a few years and are flexible enough to leave it invested for a couple or three years if the stock market takes a sudden downturn and needs that time to recover. You can switch investments to those with less up and down movement potential as the time when you think you'll withdraw the money approaches.

Read Ok then - How do I choose a S&S ISA and the discussions linked from it to get an idea of what a sector allocation is as well as the practical details of how to use one of the fund supermarkets.

If you've already put money into a mini cash ISA this year the most you can do with the S&S one is a mini S&S ISA with 4000 limit. Next tax year the limits change to maximum 7200 total each year, no more than 3600 of which can be cash, and the maxi and mini distinctions go away.

scott_lawrence wrote: »

SC, first of all thank you for your advice.
As I would be looking to invest £150 per week a cash ISA would be filled in about 20 weeks, this would leave roughly £4000 in the year to invest or save elsewhere. I like the idea of the stock and shares ISA but in don't know anything about the market, as you pointed out there are savings account that give a fairly good return. What would you recommend?
Thanks, Scott

OK let's assume firstly you fill your Cash ISA with the £3k max.

You could then open a Mini S&S ISA and invest in shares/stocks/funds, the returns should be higher but typically that will be over the long term, and IMO it's something you would need to devote a little time to managing vs. "stick it in the bank and watch it grow".

A couple of other options would be to look for one of the high-interest "regular saver" accounts, I'm not too clued up on these but I know there were a few that offered ridiculously high rates up to around £3k a year.

If you find yourself with a lump sum you could stick it in somewhere like Icesave, where you'll get 6.2%, monthly interest and near instant access, or you could go for a bond which will offer a higher APR (up to 6.9% over 12 months) but of course your money is tied up.

dunstonh wrote: »

Was that really an adviser you saw or an account manager? Whichever it is, it is wrong. If they cannot get it right on one of the simplest products there is then what hope is there for them getting it right on the more technical site. Its not as if they have the product range either to get mixed up with either. Thank goodness they only have about 10 products to worry about and not the tens of thousands proper advisers have available.

Thanks dunstonh and jem16 - it was a woman in a uniform with a clip board standing near the leaflets who I arranged with to have a full financial chat with next week. Maybe I should ask to have someone else! Maybe she was new...either way it's good to know I can leave the £3k there to continue to be tax free!

Thanks for your help.