Where to find help with best saving LAYMAN TERMS

1971

I seem to be lucky enough to have quite a bit of savings but I am useless with what best rate etc I dont really even understand what all the rates mean or what the jargon means.

Where do I find help, i assume a financial advisor? Are they free do I just look in yellow pages?

I feel so annoyed that I dont understand it all, why do they make it so hard?!

KingL

The first thing to decide is whether you are interested in savings or investments.

With savings, you put money in a bank, they pay interest on it. Currently, for every £1000 you have in, you will get roughly £25 of interest each year. Saving is safe, but interest rates aren't that spectacular. And if you receive interest at a percentage rate that is less than the rate of inflation, then your savings (spending power) are slowly being eroded in real terms.

Investment (in stocks and shares and the like) have the potential to make greater gains than savings, however they are higher risk - if share prices go down then you are not only not making any gains, you are also losing the capital amount. i.e.

Savings: If you put £1000 into savings , after a year you might end up with a total of £1025.
Investments: If you put £1000 into investments, after a year you might end up with a total of £2000 or you might end up with a total of £500.

If you are into savings (not investments), you shouldn't need a financial advisor - they are pretty straightforard and people around here can tell you what you need to know.

However if you want to get into investments and you have a fair bit of money to invest, it is worth getting a Independant Financial Advisor. No they aren't free. Far from it. Paying one to take you through the basics of savings accounts would be wasting your money.

I suggest you have a think about savings vs investments, have a read of some of the articles in the orange Savings tab at the top of this page, then come back and give a bit more info about your circumstances (e.g. do you pay tax & at what rate, what is your source of income, do you have money left over to spend at the end of each month, are you happy to lock money away with no access for a long periods of time, are you comfortable using the web for banking, that sort of thing).