Help me with my plan please

slopemaster

We have £50 000 in a 2yr fixed term savings a/c (earning 7%!) which will soon come to an end, giving us £53 500 to put away. I am making a plan of what to do, and would welcome any feedback or ideas. Here is the plan so far

• £21 000 in 3 Lloyds Classic Vantage a/cs in OHs name, to earn 4%
• £9 000 to open a third Vantage a/cs in my name and top up the two I already have
• £5 100 for cash ISA in OHs name (I’ve already got one)
• £9 100 paid off my (interest only) mortgage @ 4.14% - this is the max I can pay off without penalty

er…

• £5 600 (£2 800 each) in our Legal & Gen stakeholder pensions (these pensions have done pretty crap but it seems worth it just to get the extra money the Revenue put in)

er…
that’s most of it; leaves £3 700. Might spend some of that on a holiday!

Any other ideas, or comments on my plan, or recommendations for an ISA or anything else, very welcome… Looking for low risk – the money in the pension is our only toe in the stock market – but might consider putting the £3 700 (or up to 10% of the money) somewhere riskier. Should I be looking at stocks and shares ISAs?

Jonbvn

How about some money in a S&S ISA?

ninky_2

i'm no financial whizz but there seems to be a key element missing from this 'plan' - which is what do you hope to achieve lifestyle wise? without a bigger picture (do you want to retire in x years / achieve x amount in income etc) it is hard to see how people can advise.

slopemaster

Jonbvn wrote: »

How about some money in a S&S ISA?

Yes I am wondering about that.
Or in premiun bonds...

slopemaster

ninky wrote: »

i'm no financial whizz but there seems to be a key element missing from this 'plan' - which is what do you hope to achieve lifestyle wise? without a bigger picture (do you want to retire in x years / achieve x amount in income etc) it is hard to see how people can advise.

Yes, you're right.
We both work, have a fairly low income but don't need income from the savings at the moment. This is basically our retirement money I suppose - though it could also go towards paying off the morgage when the fixed rate ends in 2 years, if a remortgage is expensive.

Idea is OH will retire in 7 years, at which time I start to get a small pension - about a third of what we need to live on, which is about what OH earns. I will probably work a bit longer. It will be 12 years from now before I get my state pension and 16 years before he gets his. By the time we've got all 3 that will be pretty near waht we need to live on.

Jonbvn

slopemaster wrote: »

Yes I am wondering about that.
Or in premiun bonds...

PB's are quite poor.

How about a nice selection of good dividend paying blue-chips? E.g. Tesco, GSK, Vodafone etc. (DYOR).

slopemaster

Jonbvn wrote: »

How about a nice selection of good dividend paying blue-chips? E.g. Tesco, GSK, Vodafone etc. (DYOR).

If I did go for S&S, would I not be better picking a fund through Hargreaves Lansdowne rather than buying my own shares?