Where to get the best savings advice?

aspley

I am selling a house and will have £160k to save for one year and am trying to work out where would be best to keep it before buying another house.

The money can be saved by my wife and me in accounts. I am a basic-rate tax-payer and she is a higher-rate tax-payer. I assume the best thing is to look at all accounts with variable or fixed rates up to one year and divide the money between them. I'm aware of the £85k per institution FSCS limit.

Other than doing this, is there anything else I should be aware of and/or should I be seeking advice from an Independent Financial Adviser perhaps?

moneyfoolish

I use the "Best Buy" tables in https://www.savingschampion.co.uk

Notepad_Phil

aspley wrote: »

Other than doing this, is there anything else I should be aware of and/or should I be seeking advice from an Independent Financial Adviser perhaps?

I wouldn't have thought that an Independent Financial Adviser would be needed unless you've got other reasons outside of this £160k.

Just keep to regular building societies and banks and don't ever do something like google for best one year returns. There are a lot of scams out there and google, facebook, etc are not you friend.

You'll get something like 1.5% to 2% depending on whether you go for an instant access, notice or fixed rate account. The exact type of account to go for will depend on the certainty you have on when you want to get the money out - e.g. don't go for a 1 year fixed term account if you think there is a chance you'll want the money earlier.

Anything higher than those percentages for a 1 year term is either a scam or is some kind of investment with the chance of loss of capital from your money.

Moneysavingexpert has various articles to help you find the best rates - just look at the top of your screen for the BANKING&SAVING link.

Albermarle

An IFA is for investment /pension advice , not just for a simple savings question .
You could scroll through a few pages of this forum as someone asks a similar sort of question nearly every day and just read the answers .
For example
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6069952/where-to-keep-my-money-for-a-year-or-so

aspley

moneyfoolish wrote: »

I use the "Best Buy" tables in https://www.savingschampion.co.uk

Thank you, I'll have a good look through this

aspley

Albermarle wrote: »

An IFA is for investment /pension advice , not just for a simple savings question .
You could scroll through a few pages of this forum as someone asks a similar sort of question nearly every day and just read the answers .
For example
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6069952/where-to-keep-my-money-for-a-year-or-so

I saw that example one but I noticed the poster needs easy access whereas I can put it away for 12 months so just wondered if that might alter the advice.

I also saw people mentioning premium bonds, which I hadn't previously considered at all.

Moneyhelp4u

Hi
I’ve used real rates live rates in the example below. None of this is advice just ideas and I’m not a financial adviser. I’ve assumed you have no other savings or interest based income in the example below.

As a basic rate tax payer you can earn £1,000 in interest before paying tax.
Your wife as a higher rate tax payer can earn £500 in interest before paying tax.
You could invest £54,000 in a rate one year bond paying 1.85% (currently the top rate) and earn £999.
Your wife could invest £27000 in a one year bond from another provider (with separate banking licence and FSCS protection) at the same rate of 1.85% and earn £499.50.
This is a total of £81,000 invested with no tax to pay.
The remaining £79,000 could be divided into two ISA accounts at £20,000 each.
The best rate ISA for one year is 1.61%, with the next at 1.50% and again these are two different banks with their own banking licences and FSCS protection. These would earn £322 and £300 in interest respectively.
This leaves £39,000 where any interest may attract tax. £31,000 of this could go to the first one year bond, maxing your protection limit and any interest earned at a basic rate of tax. This would be a further £573.56 in interest.
The remaining £8,000 could be saved into a one year bond at 1.81% with another different bank by yourself where interest earned would be at the basic tax rate. This would be £144.80 in interest.

Here’s a summary of interest earned
£2120.50 tax-free
£718.36 at the basic rate of tax(20%), leaving £574.69.

Total earned £2695.19

Marcon

aspley wrote: »

I'm aware of the £85k per institution FSCS limit.

Other than doing this, is there anything else I should be aware of and/or should I be seeking advice from an Independent Financial Adviser perhaps?

Don't forget you can have FSCS protection up to £1M for up to 6 months if you have a 'temporary high balance'. See https://www.fscs.org.uk/how-we-work/temporary-high-balances/

May not be relevant for you, but might perhaps be useful for other forum readers.

aspley

Moneyhelp4u wrote: »

Hi
I’ve used real rates live rates in the example below. None of this is advice just ideas and I’m not a financial adviser. I’ve assumed you have no other savings or interest based income in the example below.

As a basic rate tax payer you can earn £1,000 in interest before paying tax.
Your wife as a higher rate tax payer can earn £500 in interest before paying tax.
You could invest £54,000 in a rate one year bond paying 1.85% (currently the top rate) and earn £999.
Your wife could invest £27000 in a one year bond from another provider (with separate banking licence and FSCS protection) at the same rate of 1.85% and earn £499.50.
This is a total of £81,000 invested with no tax to pay.
The remaining £79,000 could be divided into two ISA accounts at £20,000 each.
The best rate ISA for one year is 1.61%, with the next at 1.50% and again these are two different banks with their own banking licences and FSCS protection. These would earn £322 and £300 in interest respectively.
This leaves £39,000 where any interest may attract tax. £31,000 of this could go to the first one year bond, maxing your protection limit and any interest earned at a basic rate of tax. This would be a further £573.56 in interest.
The remaining £8,000 could be saved into a one year bond at 1.81% with another different bank by yourself where interest earned would be at the basic tax rate. This would be £144.80 in interest.

Here’s a summary of interest earned
£2120.50 tax-free
£718.36 at the basic rate of tax(20%), leaving £574.69.

Total earned £2695.19

That's excellent, thank you.

I'm guessing we could put £40,000 into two ISAs before April 2020 and the remaining £39,000 into two ISAs in April 2020 and then there would be no tax on interest? It would mean tying £39,000 up until April 2021 but that might be ok. Having said that, I'd be happy with the potential £2,695 interest.

Malthusian

aspley wrote: »

That's excellent, thank you.

I'm guessing we could put £40,000 into two ISAs before April 2020 and the remaining £39,000 into two ISAs in April 2020 and then there would be no tax on interest? It would mean tying £39,000 up until April 2021 but that might be ok.

Why? If you put it in an easy access cash ISA you can take it out whenever you like.

HCIMbtw

They just means tied up in the sense of setting aside money, not investing it or banking it to gain interest!

Not tied up in the sense of they can't access the cash!