House Saving Options Beyond LISA

it02s28

Hi all,

I am currently saving up to buy my first house next year and i'm in the fortunate position of being able to put aside £1,000 per month. Over the last 12 months, I've maxed out my Stocks and Shares LISA with the £4k, benefitted from the 25% government bonus and achieved growth in my S&S portfolio of c.15% - boosted significantly in recent weeks by some strongly performing Ocado shares.

I am going to take advantage of the LISA allowance but after I max this out in the next four months, I am thinking of opening a Nationwide's Flex Direct account, a Marcus Online Savings Account and further diversifying my S&S portfolio by investing in more funds.

What do we think of the plan above? Can it be improved?

eskbanker

it02s28 wrote: »

What do we think of the plan above? Can it be improved?

IMHO it makes no sense whatsoever to be investing money you'll be needing in the short term, as it could easily lose value substantially by the time it's needed, especially if you're buying individual company shares. Perhaps you've done well in recent times, but so have many others during a long bull run, without expecting this to continue indefinitely.

Standard guidance on here (and elsewhere) is to stay exclusively in cash for timescales of less than five years....

it02s28

Thanks for your reply Esk. So if your suggestion is to keep it all as cash, where would you save £1,000 a month?

eskbanker

it02s28 wrote: »

Thanks for your reply Esk. So if your suggestion is to keep it all as cash, where would you save £1,000 a month?

Multiple regular savers and current accounts would typically give the best return, but take a bit of effort to achieve that, see https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/which-saving-account/ and https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest/

Perhaps

If you're eligible for a HTB ISA, you could use that for £200pm just for the interest, even if you have no intention of claiming the bonus.