Exhausted all options? Where to save my money?

resk

TheDarkKnight93 said:

I would agree with your statement at any time prior to March this year, where I think it is fair to say that this pandemic is changing things every single day.

You are right - covid changed things.  The markets dropped / crashed by about 30%, which they have now recovered from (and more) because ultimately people keep consuming, the population keeps increasing, clever people find solutions for problems, and companies keep making and selling stuff.  As another poster has mentioned you can find people predicting economic meltdown at any point in the last 100 years.  Some of the time they are right, by blind luck, but there's no way of you or me knowing when they will be right.  Many people recognise this and conclude that the sensible thing to do is buy and hold the market.  If they are wrong over the long term, then money will probably be meaningless anyway and they will be more concerned with how to crack open their neighbour's skulls to feast on the gooey mass within.  

MoneyMan01

So what does everyone suggest I do with the additional £20,000?

As I want it for easy access (I need to transfer £65,000 back into my cash ISA in March to keep the tax wrapper), are my only options an easy access savings account? 

What is anyone else doing in my situation? 

colsten

90-day notice account at BLME, 0.9% AER any good for you? https://www.blme.com/products-and-services/savings/notice-account/

Or 60-day at Al Rayan, also 0.9% AER https://www.alrayanbank.co.uk/savings/notice-accounts/60-day-notice-account/

enthusiasticsaver

TheDarkKnight93 said:

So what does everyone suggest I do with the additional £20,000?

As I want it for easy access (I need to transfer £65,000 back into my cash ISA in March to keep the tax wrapper), are my only options an easy access savings account? 

What is anyone else doing in my situation? 

I assume your ISA was a flexible ISA if you are able to put the £65k back in after transferring it to N,S and I? 

I am not in your situation but my money which came out of N, S and I Income Bonds was put into Yorkshire building society internet saver issue 7 which is easy access paying 1% on £50k and over.  I think they have pulled that now though. The rest we invested in our stocks and shares isas and sipps. I would have thought that now would be an ideal time to buy a property given the stamp duty holiday.  £70k would provide a decent deposit for the majority of people.  Where do you live?  If Central London can you look to move further out?  I would say house price inflation should be your biggest concern rather than the very low rates almost all easy access accounts are offering. 

Aceace

TheDarkKnight93 said:

So what does everyone suggest I do with the additional £20,000?

As I want it for easy access (I need to transfer £65,000 back into my cash ISA in March to keep the tax wrapper), are my only options an easy access savings account? 

What is anyone else doing in my situation? 

Since you asked...

I've given up with FSCS protected accounts, including cash ISAs, as I feel the rates are now just too low to bother with. I'm now accepting some risk to capital rater than suffer the almost certain erosion through inflation. I'm now putting this cash at the safest end of the IFISA range. IMO the safest of these is Loanpad. Their website is here: https://www.loanpad.com/ . I posted a bit about them here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/77740228#Comment_77740228.

You'd need to do your own research to determine if it was suitable for you as you would be investing rather than saving, hence there is some risk to your capital. If you did want to invest a portion of your funds there you could do an partial transfer from your cash ISA account so as to maintain the ISA wrapper. 

Angie_B

TheDarkKnight93 said:

So what does everyone suggest I do with the additional £20,000?

As I want it for easy access (I need to transfer £65,000 back into my cash ISA in March to keep the tax wrapper), are my only options an easy access savings account? 

What is anyone else doing in my situation? 

Did you check that your ISA was flexible prior to taking the funds out? Flexclusive is not the same thing - that is merely what Nationwide call all their products which are only available to their current account holders.

It's not a huge deal if you are going to use the money to buy a property shortly (why not now with the SDLT holiday?) but you need to make sure before you try to transfer in £65k and cause yourself problems in March if it is not allowed. 

MoneyMan01

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. 

I am not closed off to the idea of investing so will try to understand that world a bit better before heading into that. 

Regarding my cash ISA, I’ve got it in writing from Nationwide that it’s a flexible ISA where I can transfer the money back in. I got them to confirm twice before I moved it out as obviously it would of meant giving up quite a bit tax wrapper which I didn’t want to do. 

Will also check out the notice accounts as that would keep it until March where I could then review. 

Just in case anyone else is reading this thread I believe the best easy access savings account is Saga’s 0.55% + fixed 0.15% bonus (0.7%).

Sad times. 

colsten

Al Rayan is also 0.7% (var) for instant access.

Aceace

I've used the flexible feature of nationwide cash ISAs without any problems.