18 Year Old With £30,000 to Invest

icequeen53

My newly 18 year old son has £30,000 in savings which he received as an inheritance from my father. My son is a sensible boy who has had access to this money since he was 16 but hasn't touched it. The money is currently in a Nationwide account which started off at 3% but is now down to 1%.

We have spoken to our son about moving this money elsewhere to get him better interest. My husband and I have a FA (Close Brothers) for our modest savings but it's probably not worth our son using them as any interest would be wiped by their fees on this relatively small sum.

We will help him financially in September when he hopes to go to Uni although he has chosen a good local university to us and prefers to commute each day.

My father specifically wanted the money to be used towards my son's first house so with this in mind my son will not require the money for a few years.

I just wondered if any of you wise folk had any suggestions? Any advice would be gratefully received!

eskbanker

icequeen53 wrote: »

My father specifically wanted the money to be used towards my son's first house so with this in mind my son will not require the money for a few years.

Your son should look at opening a Lifetime ISA in order to benefit from the 25% government bonus, although this can only be funded with £4K per tax year so only takes care of a relatively small chunk of the money.

It's unlikely that investing the money would be sensible unless it was for at least ten years, so that leaves saving as the most realistic option - have a read through the quick-link articles above labelled 'how to start saving' and 'top savings accounts', or better, encourage him to do so!

solartom

as your son is going to uni also have a look at student accounts
some give in credit interest and access to regular savers
the rest could be held in ISA's(cash/S&S and as suggested Lifetime ISA)
you can split your allowance but has to with same provider and not all offer that option
the remainder find a savings account that works for in terms of interest rate and length there is lots of information on this site just follow the links at the top of this page
as mentioned before

aroominyork

I asked a similar question this afternoon https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5766613. I think eskbanker's statement that not investing unless for ten years is too sweeping; it's true if investing 100% in equities but there are lower risk options other than cash that you can look at.

Eco_Miser

solartom wrote: »

the rest could be held in ISA's(cash/S&S and as suggested Lifetime ISA)
you can split your allowance but has to with same provider and not all offer that option

Help To Buy ISAs (not Lifetime ISAs) are a special type of cash ISA, and must be with the same ISA manager as your cash ISA, but each of the other types can be with a different manager.

eskbanker

aroominyork wrote: »

I asked a similar question this afternoon https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5766613. I think eskbanker's statement that not investing unless for ten years is too sweeping; it's true if investing 100% in equities but there are lower risk options other than cash that you can look at.

Possibly, but OP and anyone else considering following your advice could do worse than reading that thread for a healthy debate about the issue, including the pertinent observation that many people's views of risk (even those without their own rather eccentric measurement/analysis processes ) in recent years have been coloured by extended positive market conditions during the sustained bull run....