Sadvice sought (pardon my dyslexia)

alhal

After selling a property, my wife and I will be left with the best part of £400,000 free cash.

The only other source of income we have is pensions totaling just £15,000pa.

We don't want to put the cash into anything risky, eg stocks & shares.

Also we would prefer instant"ish" access to at least some of the money.

We will be buying the maximum ISAs possible, but that only scratches the surface of our quandary.

We currently have a current account with HSBC and don't feel the need for an additional one elsewhere - unless we need more than one account for moving funds around.

We have no mortgage and can foresee no need for one in the future.

Furthermore, my wife is averse to on line banking - which rules out our potentially highest rates of interest.

Anyone able to advise?

dunstonh

We don't want to put the cash into anything risky, eg stocks & shares.

Risk is not an on/off position. It is a sliding scale. Even savings accounts have some risk. Its about understanding the risk and going with the level appropriate to you. If you put risk on a scale of 1 to 100. You are currently saying that you would only consider options risk rated at 1. Is that correct?

jem16

alhal wrote: »

After selling a property, my wife and I will be left with the best part of £400,000 free cash.

The only other source of income we have is pensions totaling just £15,000pa.

We don't want to put the cash into anything risky, eg stocks & shares.

There is not just one risk level with stocks and shares.

Cash itself has a risk due to inflation eating away the value of your cash.

With the amount of money that you have there will be tax implications as you will be getting very close to the age-allowance reduction area.

I would really advise seeing an IFA.

rainy_dave

I would echo Jem's advice. Go and see an IFA. Bear in mind that if you do decide to put some of the money into the stock market that IFA's cannot give advice on individual shares.

EdInvestor

I would start with national savings and investments.

https://www.nsandi.com


You can get a lot of it put away there on a tax free basis between you, 60k in index linked tax free certs for a start, plus 60k in premium bonds. There are other instruments depending on your age.

How old are you both? If you are both over 65 you will be eligible for more than 7k each tax free income ( next year more than 8k IIRC, and 10k by 2010). Is your pension income evenly split or is one person's allowance partly wasted?If so consider allocating more cash in that name to get more tax free income.

After you've done that come back and let us know what's left. Investment of a small part of the money in a low risk area which can provide some growth may solve the inflation problem without incurring undue risk.

alhal

Thanks for the advice.

I am now in touch with a local IFA.

gt94sss2

alhal wrote: »

We currently have a current account with HSBC and don't feel the need for an additional one elsewhere - unless we need more than one account for moving funds around.

With that much money, you also qualify for their free HSBC Premier service - among with some nice benefits like free travel insurance, they also offer access to IFAs.

Regards
Sunil

dunstonh

gt94sss2 wrote: »

With that much money, you also qualify for their free HSBC Premier service - among with some nice benefits like free travel insurance, they also offer access to IFAs.

Regards
Sunil

HSBC offer salesforce IFAs working on what appears to be a panel basis. I would avoid salesforces at all costs (regardless of tied or independent status). The bank will have targets and incentives in place based on performance and that just doesnt go well with financial advice. Indeed, the bulk of all complaints to the FOS come from salesforces.

Plus, with respect to the HSBC advisers, if you were any good, you wouldnt be working for a bank. Banks are a good training ground for new advisers but their heavy staff turnover, targets, working hours and internal rules wouldnt sit well with decent advisers.

Blowsy

I agree that you'll find better advisors than those offered by HSBC but I wouldn't necessarily limit myself to IFAs only, it's more down to ethics and personality than whether or not they have a target to hit in my opinion.