HELP! £60k to invest for kids education

mattogier

We have been given £20k each for the kids (4, 9 and 10 years old) the capital of which is for their university education - any interest or earnings are for us to do with as we see fit (build up pensions, re-invest, holiday, house etc..) by their grandmother (who we hope will live for at least another 7 years!!!)

We earn about 40k pa as foster carers - which we pay little tax on thanks to foster carer tax breaks - have a mortgage of about £150k with nationwide, a number of ISA type savings and pay off the credit cards each month except about 35k that we tart from 0% to 0% card as needed til it is paid off.

We have considered maxing out on Premium Bonds, paying off the mortgage (to re-mortgage as we need to release the cash ) or investing in a buy to let property.

Has anyone any advice as to what we should do with this money to protect the capital and maximise the return.

Cheers

Matt

dunstonh

premium bonds are a lottery and a long term waste of money. A Buy to let now means you have missed the boat with rental yields not much better than a basic savings account but with tons of liability and risk to go with it.

missile

You earn 40K looking after three foster kids?

mattogier

missile wrote:

You earn 40K looking after three foster kids?

We work for an agency and get £60.00 per day per child when we have children although we get nothing if we have no foster kids - we have 3 of our own and can accomodate up to 3 full time + 1 respite foster kid.

With two foster kids in place we get about £44k + other allowances if they are disabled (but no child benefit) - Gordon Brown gives us a healthy allowance so it means that we get working families and childrens tax credits too.

It is hard work and we are on call 24/7/365 but means that we spend more time with our own kids and eachother!

If anyone is interested in fostering let me know PM and I'll give more info.

Cheers

Matt