Ethical lump sum saving

munsoor243

Hi I have £35,000 lump sum that I want to save ethically. Can you please advise what will give me best return during these challenging times. I have no debts.

Linton

In how soon will you want the money?  If it's less than 5years you would be best advised to just find a relatively high return savings account. I dont think any savings account is more ethical than any other.  Over the long term a savings account is likely to return less than inflation and so you will lose real value.

If it's at least 5 and preferably10 years or more you can think about share based investments.  Over the long term these can reasonably be expcted to grow faster than inflation but in the meantime will rise and fall, possibly being worth less than one you started at some point.  There are quite a few ethical funds that invest in 100s of companies from around the world, though you will have to check whether their ethics match yours.

Before you put money away for the long term you should ensure that you have an emergency fund of say 6 months living expenses in easy access cash accounts.  This will ensure that you dont have to sell investments at a bad time if say you lose your job or your boiler/roof/car etc needs expensive work done.

dunstonh

You say saving.  That generally means using cash deposit accounts.   It is very hard (but not impossible) to get ethical banks.  However, even those that claim ethical standards  in an area will still be doing things that you probably wouldnt class as being ethical if you are that focused on applying ethical standards to savings.
If you were talking investments, then it would be a different matter.
So, can you clarify whether you mean savings or investments?