Exhausted all options? Where to save my money?

MoneyMan01

grumiofoundation said:

TheDarkKnight93 said:

I'm still personally none the wiser on where or if I should move my £60k somewhere.

What do you want the 60k to ‘do’? 

If you are currently getting 0.05% then it makes sense to move the money. 

If you want to keep it in an ISA you are looking at 0.65% as the best easy access ISA that allows transfers in.
If you aren’t going to pay tax on interest and won’t want to keep the money ISA ‘wrapped’ for investing in the future (unlikely if you are looking at buying property) then you probably don’t actually need to keep in ISA. 

if you don’t need it in an ISA you can get 1.15% in NS and I Income bonds. 

If you want to maximise your interest You can look at licking the money away and/or there are various regular savers that still pay more than this but you are limited with what you pay in (some are not accessible until  1 year as well - have to check the Ts and Cs if each product). 

To be honest, as mentioned further up I am a little confused about how much interest the ISA actually is bringing in.

It says 0.05% on the details for the account but within the same account for tax year April 19 - April 20 it says gross interest of around £500. Which is actually more like 0.8%.

Confused by that and now cautious to raise anything in case it is an error and it gets reduced. Although I imagine the chances of it being an error are actually less than the poultry rates!

Thing I don't want to do is move it somewhere and get less than the £500 gross interest which it seems to be producing? Not sure what else I can do to check and confirm it without raising it to them.

JGB1955

What is the product name of your current ISA?  Could it have been a fixed term ISA that has come to the end of the term, and has been reduced to a standard rate?

MoneyMan01

JGB1955 said:

What is the product name of your current ISA?  Could it have been a fixed term ISA that has come to the end of the term, and has been reduced to a standard rate?

Brilliant, thank you.

Having a search on their site, the interest rate on the amount I have in there WAS 1%, which got changed in May 2020, down to 0.05% for the amount I have in there.

That explains it.

Now my second question is, if I move the entirety of that £60k out of that account, what financial implications will that have in terms of any penalties or ISA's going forward?

If I move that money to a non ISA account (so not "transferring" it), will that come with any issues? Basically what should I be aware of if I opt to move that money to a non ISA account, thus not being a "transfer"?

Side note, I of course still want to pay into my Help to Buy ISA for another 6 months to max that out. As the only way you can pay into two cash ISA's is by having them under the same building society, that would mean IF I did transfer the £60k to another ISA, it would have to be with Nationwide, which I wouldn't do as instant access rates are the same.

grumiofoundation

TheDarkKnight93 said:

grumiofoundation said:

TheDarkKnight93 said:

I'm still personally none the wiser on where or if I should move my £60k somewhere.

What do you want the 60k to ‘do’? 

If you are currently getting 0.05% then it makes sense to move the money. 

If you want to keep it in an ISA you are looking at 0.65% as the best easy access ISA that allows transfers in.
If you aren’t going to pay tax on interest and won’t want to keep the money ISA ‘wrapped’ for investing in the future (unlikely if you are looking at buying property) then you probably don’t actually need to keep in ISA. 

if you don’t need it in an ISA you can get 1.15% in NS and I Income bonds. 

If you want to maximise your interest You can look at licking the money away and/or there are various regular savers that still pay more than this but you are limited with what you pay in (some are not accessible until  1 year as well - have to check the Ts and Cs if each product). 

To be honest, as mentioned further up I am a little confused about how much interest the ISA actually is bringing in.

It says 0.05% on the details for the account but within the same account for tax year April 19 - April 20 it says gross interest of around £500. Which is actually more like 0.8%.

Confused by that and now cautious to raise anything in case it is an error and it gets reduced. Although I imagine the chances of it being an error are actually less than the poultry rates!

Thing I don't want to do is move it somewhere and get less than the £500 gross interest which it seems to be producing? Not sure what else I can do to check and confirm it without raising it to them.

Chances are the 0.05% is correct and it was fixed term or rate been reduced. 

Can beat 0.8% outside an ISA anyway.

MoneyMan01

If I move the entirety of my £60k out of my cash ISA, what financial implications will that have in terms of any penalties or ISA's going forward?

If I move that money to a non ISA account (so not "transferring" it), will that come with any issues? Basically what should I be aware of if I opt to move that money to a non ISA account, thus not being a "transfer"?

Side note, I of course still want to pay into my Help to Buy ISA for another 6 months to max that out. As the only way you can pay into two cash ISA's is by having them under the same building society, that would mean IF I did transfer the £60k to another ISA, it would have to be with Nationwide, which I wouldn't do as instant access rates are the same.

Resnam

Just switched all my savings to NS&I and bought some Premium Bonds due to advice from MSE. Can't be worse than the 0.1 I was getting and I might win a million.

badger09

TheDarkKnight93 said:

If I move the entirety of my £60k out of my cash ISA, what financial implications will that have in terms of any penalties or ISA's going forward?

  

If you move your £60k out of your Cash ISA, which is now presumably instant access, there is no tax implication, which is what I think you're asking. Any interest you earn on that £60k going forwards will be taxable, but you can earn up to £1k interest (as a BR taxpayer) per annum tax free.

Unless your existing ISA is a flexible ISA, you won't be able to pay anything back into it.

TheDarkKnight93 said:

If I move that money to a non ISA account (so not "transferring" it), will that come with any issues? Basically what should I be aware of if I opt to move that money to a non ISA account, thus not being a "transfer"?

See above. Basically, by taking the money out, you are losing the tax free wrapper you've built up for your £60k. You will be limited to paying £20k per annum, or whatever new limit is introduced, in future years into ISAs.

TheDarkKnight93 said:

Side note, I of course still want to pay into my Help to Buy ISA for another 6 months to max that out. As the only way you can pay into two cash ISA's is by having them under the same building society, that would mean IF I did transfer the £60k to another ISA, it would have to be with Nationwide, which I wouldn't do as instant access rates are the same.

No. If you decide to transfer the £60k to another Cash ISA, using the new ISA provider's transfer process, you can use whichever provider you like as long as you don't also pay any new money in. You are only restricted to Nationwide if you want to pay new money into a Cash ISA as well as your HTB ISA. But as already discussed, there is no point doing that.  

MoneyMan01

badger09 said:

TheDarkKnight93 said:

If I move the entirety of my £60k out of my cash ISA, what financial implications will that have in terms of any penalties or ISA's going forward?

  

If you move your £60k out of your Cash ISA, which is now presumably instant access, there is no tax implication, which is what I think you're asking. Any interest you earn on that £60k going forwards will be taxable, but you can earn up to £1k interest (as a BR taxpayer) per annum tax free.

Unless your existing ISA is a flexible ISA, you won't be able to pay anything back into it.

TheDarkKnight93 said:

If I move that money to a non ISA account (so not "transferring" it), will that come with any issues? Basically what should I be aware of if I opt to move that money to a non ISA account, thus not being a "transfer"?

See above. Basically, by taking the money out, you are losing the tax free wrapper you've built up for your £60k. You will be limited to paying £20k per annum, or whatever new limit is introduced, in future years into ISAs.

TheDarkKnight93 said:

Side note, I of course still want to pay into my Help to Buy ISA for another 6 months to max that out. As the only way you can pay into two cash ISA's is by having them under the same building society, that would mean IF I did transfer the £60k to another ISA, it would have to be with Nationwide, which I wouldn't do as instant access rates are the same.

No. If you decide to transfer the £60k to another Cash ISA, using the new ISA provider's transfer process, you can use whichever provider you like as long as you don't also pay any new money in. You are only restricted to Nationwide if you want to pay new money into a Cash ISA as well as your HTB ISA. But as already discussed, there is no point doing that.  

That's very helpful, thank you.

I guess my only concern is losing out on the tax wrapper I have built up in the £60k.

It's so difficult to know what to do. If the ISA stayed at the 1% I would leave it there, but I just feel I can't leave that lump there making 0.05%!

Don't know what to do.

wjr4

Transfer the Cash ISA to a cash isa that pays higher interest. Maybe open a regular saver and use this ISA to fund that or any spare cash you have every month? 

d63

TheDarkKnight93 said:

badger09 said:

TheDarkKnight93 said:

If I move the entirety of my £60k out of my cash ISA, what financial implications will that have in terms of any penalties or ISA's going forward?

  

If you move your £60k out of your Cash ISA, which is now presumably instant access, there is no tax implication, which is what I think you're asking. Any interest you earn on that £60k going forwards will be taxable, but you can earn up to £1k interest (as a BR taxpayer) per annum tax free.

Unless your existing ISA is a flexible ISA, you won't be able to pay anything back into it.

TheDarkKnight93 said:

If I move that money to a non ISA account (so not "transferring" it), will that come with any issues? Basically what should I be aware of if I opt to move that money to a non ISA account, thus not being a "transfer"?

See above. Basically, by taking the money out, you are losing the tax free wrapper you've built up for your £60k. You will be limited to paying £20k per annum, or whatever new limit is introduced, in future years into ISAs.

TheDarkKnight93 said:

Side note, I of course still want to pay into my Help to Buy ISA for another 6 months to max that out. As the only way you can pay into two cash ISA's is by having them under the same building society, that would mean IF I did transfer the £60k to another ISA, it would have to be with Nationwide, which I wouldn't do as instant access rates are the same.

No. If you decide to transfer the £60k to another Cash ISA, using the new ISA provider's transfer process, you can use whichever provider you like as long as you don't also pay any new money in. You are only restricted to Nationwide if you want to pay new money into a Cash ISA as well as your HTB ISA. But as already discussed, there is no point doing that.  

That's very helpful, thank you.

I guess my only concern is losing out on the tax wrapper I have built up in the £60k.

It's so difficult to know what to do. If the ISA stayed at the 1% I would leave it there, but I just feel I can't leave that lump there making 0.05%!

Don't know what to do.

there is no need to lose the tax wrapper on the £60k. if the nationwide cash isa is flexible then withdraw £59.9K and buy ns&i income bonds at 1.15% with that, but be sure just before the end of the tax year to put the money back again to maintain the tax status. if it is not flexible then open a new cash isa with some other provider that is flexible and allows transfers in and do a partial transfer of £59.9k to that new isa and since the rate you will get will likely be pretty miserable again do a flexible withdraw and buy income bonds, or whatever and pay back before the end of the year.
as regards the current years £20k allowance i would suggest you pay into the HTB now and then just before the end of the tax year top up the miserable 0.05% existing cash isa you already have with whatever funds you have available up to the max £20k.