New to saving

seventies1

Ok this is my first post on this subject on any board so please bear with me as i have never had money to save, only paying off debts. I will shortly be inheriting a reasonable sum of money 100 - 150k, i have debts (credit cards and loans) totalling about 4k and will be waving these goodbye at last.

Question: What do i do with the rest?

I live alone, am happy where i live, i work full time. I am looking for something that will pay me a small monthly income to suppliment my salary and a way to grow my money. I will apologise if i sound thick, but as i have never had surplus cash, i dont really understand what i should be looking for. I will be asking my bank for advice, but i really want to know what to ask them.

Thank you in advance.

Lokolo

The bank will just suggest you invest it in their products, which aren't particularly good.

Any reason why you want to use the money to supplement your income? For fun and laughs or because you spend more than you earn?

Kohoutek

Don't see your bank. They have a very strong vested interest to sell you their products, which may not be right for you. It's better to see an independent financial advisor, and pay for the advice, because otherwise it will come from commission (payments from the providers of financial products they sell to you).

You can read about the basics of investment here, to get an idea of what the options are:

http://www.candidmoney.com/investment/default.aspx

Mickygg

Depends whether you want to take on risk or not. If you are risk averse and want to defo hang on to the capital you could just put this in a savings account. Lock away for a couple of years splitting £50k in each one would give you about 4% and 4-6k before tax a year. Not much but risk free. Anything else as above see an IFA and not your bank.

seventies1

Thank you Mickygg and Kohoutek for your useful replies. I was thinking of a savings account for 50k of it, to be 'safe'. Thanks for the advise on a IFA, i really would have just gone to my bank!

I really need to get an understanding of how to get the rest working as hard as possible for me.

Thanks again

Jonathan_Devine

Spend some money to educate yourself on investing in the stock market. Then invest in a well-deversified portfolio. Depending on your level of risk tolerance you can invest in high growth stocks or safer blue-chip stocks. Alternatively you can do both by investing in ETF Funds (Exchange Traded Funds).

Your returns will significantly exceed anything you will receive from your bank.

All the best,
Jonathan