£100,000

Glen_Clark

Problem with buy to let is that if planning restraints are relaxed, house prices will crash. Obviously there are powerful vested interests conserving planning restraints as they are, and holding down interest rates to maintain prices. But as more voters are priced out of owning their own homes, the need to create employment for unemployed voters by building, voters being robbed of their savings, the pressure to relax planning constraints and restore interest rates to inflation rate levels is increasing. To some extent politicians have been able to placate voters by giving them access to more money to spend on the same limited stock of housing under the pretext of making more homes affordable, although that has obviously increased prices. The unaffordable housing benefit bill is another symptom of house prices being out of proportion to the rest of the economy.
Will politicians get away with putting a limit on housing benefits without putting a limit on housing costs?
You have to guess if or when the building land price bubble will burst.
Its a bit like the inflated energy and water prices that are holding up utility company shares. I don't know how much longer they can get away with it.
Its more of a political question than anything else.
I guess thats why so many financial institutions hire (ex) politicians.

donniej

I don't think anyone here would claim to be qualified to give advice (for that, you would need to speak to an IFA.)

But you may want to think about the following:
* RPI is currently between 3.5% and 5% per annum, you would need to earn more than that not to be losing money in real terms (i.e. the purchasing power of your money doesn't go down.)
* house prices are high compared on a historical basis (5x avg earnings v. 3.5x on average.)
* 2 years is probably too short a term to consider shares, particularly considering the markets currently (uncertainty around the euro, the US not doing too well, possible disruptions in the middle east etc.) - as others have mentioned.

It depends on your outlook. On a 2 year term, if you are looking mainly at capital preservation, you may want to look at lower-risk options (to avoid losses) at the cost of growth (i.e. the value of your money may go down slightly in real terms, but at least you don't make nominal losses.)

atush

I would put a fair bit into a pension then if you think you may lose your job.

If you are made redundant, and end up spending your own savings to live on, savings and investments are counted against means testing, and pensions are not (if you re not reciveing the income yet).

And unless you are living high on the hog, then you won't need the whole 100K in 2 years so I would put this and next years ISAs onto a 3 yr fix perhaps.

MarcoM

Atush would you suggest tying money up in a three year rate ISA?
I wonder if interest rates in these products are likely to go up in the next 12 months.
Would the OP be better off sticking to a one year fixed ISA?

MrRee_2

Put it into property in the UK - you simply cannot lose,

dunstonh

MrRee wrote: »

Put it into property in the UK - you simply cannot lose,

You should really add a smiley when you are joking otherwise people may think you are being serious.

atush

MarcoM wrote: »

Atush would you suggest tying money up in a three year rate ISA?
I wonder if interest rates in these products are likely to go up in the next 12 months.
Would the OP be better off sticking to a one year fixed ISA?

I was saying tying SOME small portion of it for 3 years. Beacuse they don't need all of the 100K in 2 years.

and 3 years ago I thought interest rates might be rising by now. but they aren't, I also thought(hoped) QE was over but we just signed up for more- what did you think?

jamesd

Since you're concerned about losing your job you should not immediately pay it into a pension because that makes it unavailable to pay living expenses if the contingency that you're planning for happens.

The pension can be an option if you want to be living on means tested benefits and wish to protect the capital until you're at least 55 years old.

For other people the first thing to consider is that you can expect to generate 5-6% and perhaps 7% income from a pot of money. Tax free if its interest from investments within a S&S ISA. So that's perhaps £6,000 to £7,000 of income that would last for quite a few years. That may not be sufficient to meet your needs so you might need to work out how long the money could last while drawing on it at the required rate and getting investment income.

That planning could include contingency planning like selling expensive cars to buy cheaper ones if it looks like a long term possibility. Or property downsizing if the property market is suitable. If you have an interest only mortgage that you regularly overpay on, you could switch to not overpaying or consider withdrawing some of the overpaid money..

For some they may have an objective of being able to do this until they die - that is, use non-pension money to last until age 55 when they can get pension money, then on until state pension age when they get more money. Critical to this planning is likely to be having much of the money outside a pension so you can draw on it at a high rate before pensions can start.

I don't know how close you are to being at this sustainable level.

What are your objectives? Is it credible to live indefinitely on the money and other assets? How long until it is credible?

One of my own objectives was getting to the point of it being credible as rapidly as possible, in part because in the past I'd drained savings as living money.

warwicktiger wrote: »

I am not a qualified registered financial advisor, and therefore it would be illegal for me to advise you!

Not so. Since you are not a registered financial advisor it is legal for you to post advice here. It's merely unregulated advice.

One of the conditions for a restriction on giving advice is that the restricted advice must be given as part of a business activity. That won't apply to most posters here.