made redundant can i live off 170k.

bjorn_again

srg751 wrote: »

ive just been made redundant at 54 with little hope of a job in the forseeable future. I claim £60 a week jobseekers allowance, have a pension pot of 35k and £135k in savings. Can someone please advise me on how to invest this money to enable me to have some income. My mortgage will be paid off later this year but even then I will still be left with an annual shortfall of 9k Any advice would be appreciated.

Off topic I know, but don't give up hope of getting a job, even part time can improve your finances considerably. I lost my career in the Merchant Navy at about the same age as you, due to heart by-pass surgery. I thought I'd never work again not only because of my age but also because of the limited scope for an ex Merchant Seaman. To cut a long story short, about a year after my by-pass I got a job working nights in a hotel and although I've moved on a bit from then, I am still working and will be 67 in June. If you want to work again, don't give up hope and be prepared to try your hand at anything.

ray123

You should not be claiming job seekers, as you have more than 16k in savings.
Dont worry, your secret is safe with me... Everyone is exploiting the system these days.

ctdctd

ray123 wrote: »

You should not be claiming job seekers, as you have more than 16k in savings.
Dont worry, your secret is safe with me... Everyone is exploiting the system these days.

Wrong, I think. Contribution-based Jobseeker's Allowance is not means tested.

http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/JCP/Customers/WorkingAgeBenefits/Dev_015272.xml.html

jamesd

eeja, corporate bond funds are what should be used, not individual corporate bonds. The bond funds will hold a wide range of them and reduce the potential risks.

ray123, please stop making inaccurate claims about contribution-based JSA. It's something you get for up to 182 days for having paid national insurance contributions and there is no means test for it. After the 182 days then only income-based JSA would be available and srg751 would have too much in savings to qualify for that.

eeja

jamesd wrote: »

eeja, corporate bond funds are what should be used, not individual corporate bonds. The bond funds will hold a wide range of them and reduce the potential risks.

Thank you for that advice and for small investors with say less than £100k to invest then bond funds...that make a hefty charge and spread the risk...are definitely advisable.
But for larger investors buyng between 10 and 20 separate individual bonds in major UK banks then surely they are spreading the risk ?
So is a bond in every major UK bank not spreading the risk, jamesd ?

Surely far more dangerous than the risk of a major bank going bust is a broker selling bonds without disclosing to the investor hidden and serious conditions attached to a major bond such as Barclays, which will not pay any coupon or interest on ones bond unless the shareholders are paid a dividend. Who could even have imagined such a clause in a Corporate Bond ?

opinions4u

eeja wrote: »

eeja wrote: »

So is a bond in every major UK bank not spreading the risk, jamesd ?

No.

It is putting all your eggs in to one basket case sector.

Banks are not the only companies to issue Corporate Bonds.

amcluesent

After Labour's disastrous mismanagement of the economy, taxation will have to be sky-high for 20 years to pay off the debt, and all benefits will be means-tested. So there's no point in working for pin-money which will just be taxed and retiring with savings; you may as well reach 65 with just the clothes on your back.

However, inflation will sky-rocket from late in 2009, so any income you have need to be index-linked or you'll be living like a pauper.

jamesd

eeja wrote: »

But for larger investors buyng between 10 and 20 separate individual bonds in major UK banks then surely they are spreading the risk ?
So is a bond in every major UK bank not spreading the risk, jamesd ?

A little. That still leaves only bank corporate bonds. What about all of the rest? What about corporate bonds from countries other than the UK? Sticking to just UK banks is not sensible.

As for that individual corporate bond you're writing about, not having to worry about that is one reason why corporate bond funds have an advantage: it's the job of the fund manager to worry about such things.

eeja

opinions4u wrote: »

eeja wrote: »

No.

It is putting all your eggs in to one basket case sector.

Banks are not the only companies to issue Corporate Bonds.

You are abolutely right but the fact is UK bank corporate bonds give the highest yield in investment grade UK bonds.
Only yesterday RBS offered me a sterling ICICI corporate bond maturing May 2010 and yielding 20 percent to maturity !
Who would not want to buy that ?. ICICI shares are currently higher than for many months and its the biggest private bank in India .

jamesd

Someone who had read about the runs on branches of ICICI in India a couple of months ago might want to at least consider what the risk level is of that bond. It's something that could go nicely inside a large pool of individual corporate bonds, though.

I haven't seen anything to cause me to believe that ICICI is in any great danger of actually failing, though, and the runs seem to have been largely unmerited. Still interesting that they happened.