Have £200 a month to invest for daughters Uni

chopper1400

Hi all,

My daughter has just started sixth form and I have £200 a month available that I want to put aside for the next 2 years to help with when she goes to University.

I am a higher rate tax payer and normally use up my ISA allowance each year; so need a good savings account or similar.

Do I just go for the best current rate (around the 2.5-2.75%) or is there something better or more pro-active I can do? I don't fancy the risk of shares though.

Cheers

Tony

mania112

You can put the money into a Cash ISA in her name.

opinions4u

Jumping through the hoops to a First Direct Regular Saver may be a step worth taking.

See the link at the top of the page.

innovate

mania112 wrote: »

You can put the money into a Cash ISA in her name.

True - but then the money is legally hers and she can do what she likes with it. Which may or may not be an issue.

Totton

Premium bonds?

xylophone

JISA with Halifax? If she is 16 or over she will get the 6% rate without your needing to have an ISA account with them (although you might have already).http://www.halifax.co.uk/savings/interest-rates/personal-rates/#junior-cash-isa
https://www.gov.uk/junior-individual-savings-accounts

Speculator

Do you live near a Derbyshire, Cheshire or Dunfermline Building society?

They all have a branch only 12 month Platinum monthly savings account paying a fixed rate of 5% gross and allows you to save upto £500 per month.

It also allows one penalty free withdrawal per year.

If your daughter is a non taxpayer, you could open it in her name, fill out a form R85 to get gross interest.

atush

Regualr saver or a cash ISA in her name (or both as the reg saver money could go into an isa when it matures).

newfoundglory

With rates dropping, you could always put part into cash isa and part into shares isa, with a hope of greater returns.

eg

£150 per month into best cash isa you can find

£50 per month into a 'high income' investment fund in stocks and shares isa. This could be a fund which has mostly FTSE (plus some US and Euro) shares with high dividend yields.

Although it clearly carries risk over short 2 year period, if you choose one with a historic yield of at least 5% or 6% you would hope that the overall return given potential dividend yield is greater than that of cash savings. But, the fund share price could fall as well as rise.

chopper1400

Thanks everyone for the advice, especially opinions4u. I have been a first direct customer since they started, so that 8% savings account would suit brilliant. No surprise that they didn't advertise it to their customers?!

chopper1400

All set up, nice and easy as always :-)
After 20 years, i would always recommend first direct as a good bank if you don't need or want to use branches.
Thanks again.