Top Cash NISAs 2014/15

Peter_Lanky

My quandary, and I'm sure it is the same for many others, is having 10 years or so of accumulated cash ISAs, currently earning 3.2% that within a few months will expire, with apparently no reasonable options to reinvest it.

I have also had S&S ISAs over the years and various other S&S based investments, and have had pretty much 100% failure with them, so this is no longer a route I want to go along from a confidence point of view, as the S&S ISAs I still have, bought by 'drip feed' are worth significantly less than I paid for them.

The whole process seems a nightmare, with financial institutions filling their T&Cs with enough clauses to cheat and baffle the majority of people. Also, with inflation currently running at around 2.5% (CPI is not a measure of inflation, RPI is), there appears nothing other than to start making a loss until things improve, which by the way things are going might never happen.

I'm already maxed-out on Santander 123 accounts, so that isn't an option, and nobody else seems to be doing a similar account that holds enough funds to make it worthwhile. It's hardly feasible to have 20 different current accounts just to get the best interest.

So is there another way that anyone has discovered?

jimjames

You might not think it feasible to hold multiple current accounts but many people do.

I'm curious about which funds you bought in your S&S ISAs too. It's quite an achievement to have lost money when the markets are currently at higher levels than they have been previously. That suggests you may have bought and sold rather than holding. When did you buy? You can get 4% income from equity funds so it might be worth reconsidering and understanding what you did wrong before so you don't make the same mistake again.

Holding lots of cash long term isn't a great way to beat inflation and I don't expect any meaningful rise in interest rates for at least 5 years so factor when rises may come into your calculations too.

Peter_Lanky

I bough some generic unit trusts via financial institutions and chose a couple of my own after doing some research and choosing funds that had shown slow, steady but not spectacular growth (i.e. considered safe). A significant proportion was purchased at the time when the FTSE was higher than it is now, possibly around 10 years back. Most of the buying was done monthly by drip feed to reduce risk.

I just think I'm unlucky with S&S and now find that it cause too much stress to be worth the effort. I didn't do anything 'wrong' nor make any 'mistakes' but did exactly what was advised at the time.

I don't like holding cash, but unless I can find a better option that doesn't cause stress, then I feel I am stuck with it.

Even NS&I hasn't released an inflation proof bond in almost 4 years. It's quite depressing really.

jimjames

You might want to check the prices you paid and current values. I'd expect that you would be up around 50% if you bought about 10 years ago if you include income as well as capital value. FTSE is virtually identical level to any peak over last 15 years so you shouldn't be lower than your investment. So it's worth checking so you aren't getting a misleading picture of the performance thinking its performed worse than reality.

Peter_Lanky

I've been following it religiously on Microsoft Money from the days when we still had PEPs. No possibility of error.

jimjames

Peter_Lanky wrote: »

I've been following it religiously on Microsoft Money from the days when we still had PEPs. No possibility of error.

Do you manually enter prices? Ms money hasn't automatically updated for several years.

Can you say which funds? If they're held since PEPs then it seems almost impossible that they are now lower.

As an example of one fund I've held since PEPs, FTSE tracker that was bought at 43p and is now worth 84p per unit. That's despite the FTSE still being slightly lower than in 1999.

Vortigern

jimjames wrote: »

Do you manually enter prices? Ms money hasn't automatically updated for several years.

MS Money can still be made to update many (but not all) fund and share prices. See thread below.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4968527

Peter_Lanky

On the MS Money issue, it hardly matters to me, as it takes 2 minutes every weekend to update manually.

As far as buying stocks are concerned, I've been stung and that's it. I have no confidence in them, and no matter what methods of persuasion are used, I'm not going back to a situation where I may wake up one morning and a good chunk of my money has suddenly dropped by 20%.

All I am looking for is something that can match or beat inflation (RPI), without the need to spread money over 40+ different accounts in order to do so.

jimjames

Vortigern wrote: »

MS Money can still be made to update many (but not all) fund and share prices. See thread below.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4968527

Yes, I use the updater myself. I wanted to check if the OP had not been getting current prices hence the reason they thought the investment was low.

Peter_Lanky wrote: »

As far as buying stocks are concerned, I've been stung and that's it. I have no confidence in them, and no matter what methods of persuasion are used, I'm not going back to a situation where I may wake up one morning and a good chunk of my money has suddenly dropped by 20%.

That's entirely your prerogative but the fact you seem unwilling to substantiate your claims with any facts would tend to indicate that your investments are actually not losing money over 15 years. It would certainly help others to see what you have done and maybe able to suggest any options.

It's fine if investments are not for you and you're not prepared to see any drop in capital. However it is potentially misleading for others reading this board to think that you've lost money over such a timescale when you haven't provided any information about how that has happened.

Peter_Lanky wrote: »

All I am looking for is something that can match or beat inflation (RPI), without the need to spread money over 40+ different accounts in order to do so.

I think you'll be disappointed as no such product exists. I hope you don't get ripped off by investments claiming they offer 8%-10% guaranteed income along with capital security but when you look under the skin they are nothing of the sort and about as risky as you can get. Be very careful if you are finding such schemes that pay above average returns with claimed guarantees.

RRatchet

Me & the OH are both non-taxpayers (farmers both working full time but not making much money normally & in 14/15 a loss). We have less than £15,000 each in ISA's from when we were employees & getting a wage. From what I can see there's not much point in us keeping our ISA's we would be better off cashing them in & putting them into a higher interest current or savings account & filling in the R85 to receive interest gross. Or if there was an ISA with a decent rate that didn't allow transfers cashing in and taking out that ISA with now non-ISA money. If and when ISA interest rates become competitive again we will still be able to use our full allowances as we're no where near having the limit.

Quite possibly the best solution would be to reduce the farm O/D but we prefer not to have all our eggs in one basket it gives us peace of mind to be able to access some money in an emergency without having to go cap in hand to the farm bank. Bearing in mind an O/D can be called in or reduced at any time should the bank feel like it. If we have our saving's with them as well as the O/D we're in the same position; they still have us over a barrel.

Still considering our position.

R