Do ISA's deserve to be slated?

baby_boomer

jaghir wrote: »

Also, ISAs cannot be put into a Trust, which means they must go direct to the deceased estate.

They must be sole name, again making sure they go into the estate.

Is this relevant to 99% of readers of this site?

If you own a £1m house and have income more than sufficient for your personal & retirement needs then I'm sure it is.

oldfella

if you havent saved/invested then put your money each year into a cash ISA and other savings. Once you have a reasonable amount saved and if you can accept the short term risks of equities, then use S&S ISA

lisyloo

Is this relevant to 99% of readers of this site?

If you own a £1m house and have income more than sufficient for your personal & retirement needs then I'm sure it is.

Anout 20% of us will die before retirement so our pensions funds will be inherited.
I think it's relevant to more than 1% of us personally.
I thought it was an interesting point.

Also note that not everyone on this forum is "cash constrained".
There has been discussion on the cheapest way to buy hot tubs, cruises and Rolex watches.
There is no reason that you have to be "cash constrained" to be a moneysaver.

debbie42

baby_boomer wrote: »

Is this relevant to 99% of readers of this site?

If you own a £1m house and have income more than sufficient for your personal & retirement needs then I'm sure it is.

Even if it's only relevant to 1% (and I expect it's more), then it's still a very valid point. Why even ask how many it pertains to: does it matter, as long as it's relevant to some?

baby_boomer

A valid point about the wide range of site readers.

lisyloo wrote: »

About 20% of us will die before retirement so our pensions funds will be inherited.

OK - but who's planning for an early death and setting up trust funds accordingly ?

lisyloo

OK - but who's planning for an early death and setting up trust funds accordingly ?

Well everybody should be because we don't know which 20% of us it will be.

I haven't set up trust funds but I have made sure that all our life assurances and pensions funds are set up "in trust" and don't go into our estates.

Any of us could die tomorrow so if you are sensible you'll take the time to sort it out.
I can assure you that if you want to trawl you can find some sad stories about people that didn't.
Sometimes money ends up not going to the people intended especially if there has been a divorce or family rift.

Compound_2

I was thinking it’s strange the majority component of Individual SAVINGS Accounts is stocks and shares. The FSA makes a very clear distinction between savings and investments, and shares should never be thought of as savings. I wonder why Mr Brown has perpetuated the misnomer. Surely stocks and shares ISAs should be renamed Individual Investment Accounts, or reverted to the old name Personal Equity Plan!

ILikeFreebies

Another advantage of ISAs is that the interest doesn't have to be declared when applying for tax credits. For me and my wife that's over £1500 of interest last tax year that should increase the amount of Child Tax Credits we get

lisyloo

Another advantage (just reminded by tha last poster) is that you do not need to declare ISA interest on a tax return which makes life slightly easier.

I have 96% of my savings and investments in ISAs and only have a small amount outside of ISAs (for cash flow e.g. paying for holidays).

Judwin

I've accumulated nearly £30K in a Cash ISA over the past 8 or 9 years, which represented 90% of my savings. I'm beginning to think this was extremly foolish. Why?

Because I didn't really understand what a SS ISA was.

Whilst a Cash ISA might be a good place to put money for a defined purpose short/medium term (i.e. house deposit, childrens university fees, once in a lifetime round the world cruise, etc) I can't see that it's a good home for cash for over 8 years. Unless you're very carefull, and prepared to switch (which I wasn't), your ISA interest rate might barely keep up with inflation (which mine didn't).

When last year I realised my error - if that's what it was - I opened up a Mini SS ISA, and put in the £4000 for last year. This year I've put all my allowance into a SS Maxi ISA. So I've now got an additional £11,000 invested in OEICS.

Hindsight is always 20-20, but I personally now believe that I only needed some of that money in a Cash ISA, perhaps up to £10K, or three years worth. But after that, I think I should have invested it in an SS ISA. It would mean being a bit more hands on, but the returns should make it worthwhile most of the time.

The 'advice' I wish someone had given me is :

1) If you can afford to, max out both your Cash and SS Mini Isa allowance for the first couple of years. If you can't afford to max out, put equal amounts into the Cash and SS parts.

2) Once you've saved a healty wedge (in cash - up to say £10K), switch to a Maxi SS ISA for most subsequent years.

I can't wait till the rules change (next year ?) so that some of my Mini cash ISA money can be transferred to buy SS within the ISA wrapper. I simply can't see that keeping £30K in cash at 6% interest is the correct way to go unless you know you're going to need the money in the near future.

IMHO
Cheers,
Judwin