Investing £180k for one year.

Mr_Wibble_3

Hi,

Looking for some advice please. Due to a house move and the slow selling of my previous home I find myself in a situation where I have £180,000 to invest for one year. Any investment needs to be low risk as in one years time I will pay off a big chunk of my mortgage with the money without any large early settlement fees.

Our situation is I am a high rate tax payer and my wife (a foreign national if that makes any difference?) is a house wife.

My thoughts are to maximise my Santander 123 account, open one for my wife and a joint account. Maximise our Cash ISAs and then split the rest into less than £85,000 amounts in the highest savings accounts in my wife's name.

How does this sound? Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Wibble

kidmugsy

Sounds OK. Once you've maxed your high interest current accounts, you might find a reasonable compromise of convenience and interest rates would be to bung the rest into an account at ns&i.

ColdIron

Sounds a good plan, not sure I'd bother with the ISAs. After current accounts NS&I is the simplest option but Aldermore are offering 1.9% for a one year fix that might suit

colsten

"Investing" is what you'd do if you can lock away your funds for 5-10 years minimum. As you can't do that, cash savings is what you need to look at.

Currently, current accounts offer the best interest rates, Santander 123 being one of the accounts you already know of. There are others, see http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest

Your wife won't have to pay UK tax on interest if she is not a UK tax payer. Depending on what the tax rules are in her country of citizenship, she may have to pay tax in that country - this can be extremely complex and she should seek advice from her embassy.

The top paying current accounts will probably take £130-£150K if you can exhaust all the sole and joint accounts. The rest of your money would have to go into savings accounts (which includes ISAs) and they might be best in your wife's name if she doesn't have to pay any tax on them .Regular savings accounts might also be of interest, as you can get some £1,200 to £1,600 a month per person into regular savings accounts at 4-6% AER.

jamesd

Are you 55 or older? Will yo be 5 or older in one year? Got a spouse who would be? If the answer is yes you can potentially make a lot of money safely using pension contributions.

Mr_Wibble_3

Thanks guys.

Yes I mean saving not investing.

Early forties so pension maybe out.

Thanks about the pointers to my wife's tax liability in her homeland.

Thanks again.

luvpump

Mr_Wibble wrote: »

Hi,

Looking for some advice please. Due to a house move and the slow selling of my previous home I find myself in a situation where I have £180,000 to invest for one year. Any investment needs to be low risk as in one years time I will pay off a big chunk of my mortgage with the money without any large early settlement fees.

Our situation is I am a high rate tax payer and my wife (a foreign national if that makes any difference?) is a house wife.

My thoughts are to maximise my Santander 123 account, open one for my wife and a joint account. Maximise our Cash ISAs and then split the rest into less than £85,000 amounts in the highest savings accounts in my wife's name.

How does this sound? Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Wibble

I have two 123 accounts, the rest I have put in Ratesetter at 4.4% for a year .. But you need a little bit of cojones

jamesd

If you have real or emulated cojones there's P2P paying more than just 4.4%. Last week I put a few thousand to help a small business buy some new shipping containers, 3/5th of them already sold, with the loan secured on the containers and purchase order. That was using Ablrate, which usually expects to offer things in the 10-12% range. There are others.

TattyBear

I've been in Ratesetter for just over a year. Have high 5 figures spread over 1,3 and 5 yr markets.

Not lost a penny, and all my payments have been paid on time. Can't fault it.

The 1 yr market seems ideal for your needs.