Complete newbie - advice please

Herandhim

Firstly we must apologise for our ignorance but we would really appreciate any advice you could offer. After years of complete investment/financial adviser aversion, we must finally bite the bullet. We have always tried to live within our means, mortgage was paid as soon as possible, credit cards cleared every month etc and any spare just put in Prem bonds -which got us about a 1:5 to 2 percent return btw. My wife is now taking early retirement (about 6 years before state retirement age) and I have about 10 years to go. We have downsized and will be left with a lump sum of £160000, and pension income of around £1100 per month until the state pensions kick in. No children .
So what to do -we have tried to read up on this but its seems convoluted at best. The plan was to use pension + 1k per month to live on until official retirement, possible then downsize again or use a release equity firm on house if necessary.
So where to put money for the totally risk averse -ISAs first we assume but then what? It would appear you need to set up several accounts at various places and then transfer minimum amounts between to qualify for the best interest rates -also with direct debits in each?
We would really appreciate any advice you could offer as we were kind of hoping to enjoy this bit of our lives, not spend hours untangling "offers" from the banks etc.
Thanks

xylophone

You will be living on your wife's pension? An index linked DB pension from a formerly contracted out DB scheme?

Have you both obtained new state pension statements?

https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

Interest rates on cash isas are rather poor.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/article-1583859/Best-savings-rates-General-savings-Internet-branch.html

If you want to stay in cash, then high interest current accounts are available - if you use both sole and joint accounts you should be able to squeeze the bulk of the cash into them and associated regular savers.

If you wish to use stocks and shares, as you have no experience of investing, you should do some reading around and if still not confident, consider paying for the services of an IFA.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/70913734#Comment_70913734 post 4 may be worth a look.

Herandhim

Hello Xylophone -firstly, thanks for replying -the link you provided will definitely help and it confirmed you can set up the regular transfers needed to qualify without a specific income source.
In answer to your question - you could say I'll be living off her pension, although I'd prefer to think of it as living off the £160000 /1k a month accumulated from being able to pay off the mortgage with commission and bonuses from my side.
More seriously, she worked for the borough council so it was a final salary scheme but it has been changed/downgraded recently.
We have obtained the pension forecasts - and both have over the qualifying periods as things stand, but will be ensuring they are kept topped up, as I noticed that in 2009 one I'd received needed 30 yrs and the latest is up to 35 (and counting?).
Genuinely not sure about stocks etc, always believed its a bit like gamblers, they always tell you about the good results never the bad. I think the highest rate savings options is more for us.
Thanks again for pointing us in the right direction.