what to do with cash after selling house

hazyfish

hello all, we are going to be selling a house and buying another after about 6 months (me and partner). We will have about 400,000 gbp to put somewhere before we buy a new one. feels like rather a lot of money to have hanging around and i want it to work for me (safely!) for a few months. i have read that for up to 6 months, FSCS protection covers up to a million pounds, so we could keep it one place. But i'm happy to put it in different places. Perhaps premium bonds and then high interest accounts ??
thoughts and advice welcome ! thanks v much.

eskbanker

You can indeed put £50K each into premium bonds but beyond that your best bet is likely to be the Ulster Bank 1.25% account for the rest - if you get to six months you'd need to transfer to NS&I for full protection or split into multiple savings accounts.

There are some current accounts paying 2-5% but they're on such small balances (relative to your pot) that they're unlikely to be worth pursuing.

hazyfish

thank you eskbanker. do you think that premium bonds is a good idea?

eskbanker

hazyfish wrote: »

thank you eskbanker. do you think that premium bonds is a good idea?

It's down to personal preference really - there is always the tiny prospect of a big win and the 1.15% (tax-free) expected return for a large holding over a long period isn't a mile away from the interest you'd earn at Ulster, although the typical return is lower because of the odds being skewed by those few big prizes.

LHW99

We did that some time back with money from one house prior to buying another.
I seem to remember it did a bit better than an instant access account, but not much - but there was always that chance!

Thrugelmir

hazyfish wrote: »

do you think that premium bonds is a good idea?

At least you know that the capital is secure and easily obtainable on demand.