Can you have too many ISAs?

Langtang

Between my wife and I, we have 6 ISAs. Not all of them are maxed to £85k banking limit. We have an inheritance in the wings and we’re thinking of opening a couple of them (cash and shares) each in March and a couple each in April. Is this too many and, if so, is there an alternative. 

dunstonh

Can you have too many ISAs?

no.

between my wife and I, we have 6 ISAs. Not all of them are maxed to £85k banking limit. 

That's a lot of money to be losing real terms value on each year.

is there an alternative. 

unless you are spending all that money in the next 5 years then you should be looking at investing some of it.  You are just letting lose spending power. 

masonic

If you have that many, and they are all cash ISAs, then that implies you are compromising on interest rate on at least some of them. There is no limit to the number of ISAs you can have, but there is a limit to the number you should have depending on your circumstances. Agree with dunstonh that if most of those ISAs are cash ISAs at or near the FSCS limit you should consider whether you need to hold so much cash.

tacpot12

No, you can't have too many, but once you go above a couple it is worth making a proper list of them, so you don't lose track. I use Excel for this sort of thing, and use different columns in the spreadsheet to record who the account is with, what the account number is, how much is in the account, etc. 

Langtang

dunstonh said:

Can you have too many ISAs?

no.

between my wife and I, we have 6 ISAs. Not all of them are maxed to £85k banking limit. 

That's a lot of money to be losing real terms value on each year.

is there an alternative. 

unless you are spending all that money in the next 5 years then you should be looking at investing some of it.  You are just letting lose spending power. 

Thank you for your input @dunstonh, always appreciated. Thanks @tacpot12, with regards keeping track of everything. I wish I knew more about Excel than I do (other spreadsheets are available) - which is why we don't have a retirement spreadsheet, it's just beyond me.

As alluded to by @masonic , it was more of a "how many is too many" question. To be a little clearer, the most we have in any one ISA is c£40k. The lowest is £15.5k (car fund), so none really are at the peak banking limit. Would it be better to put more money in these, or open new ones? As you have rightly said, it's a lot of money just sitting losing money but I feel that I am rather risk averse when it comes to investing. What are some of my options in this regard? We're not looking for record-breaking returns.

We will be inheriting 2500 Chevron shares in due course, and we'd like to keep these in a few S&S ISAs between us (I was informed in another post that I would need to sell the ones I have and buy new ones to put in the ISA) My father in law was very happy with the return from these. I see no reason to meddle with it, but have heard people mention that to have a lot of money in just one stock (in an ISA or otherwise) is a bad idea.

I've tried to learn a little about investing since my in'laws passed away, but it just seems beyond me. Our goal is to hopefully retire, at 60, in 2 years time living off our private pensions and a little cash (from the ISA's) until our state pensions kick in at 67. We have no-one to leave anything substantial to, so plan on spending it all - if we can.

I wish I knew how to break apart quotes in the way @dunstonh has......

dunstonh

I wish I knew how to break apart quotes in the way @dunstonh has......

Copy the text from the message you wish to quote.  Paste it in the replay box. Press return after the text to ensure you have a line you can type your reply.   Then highlight that text in the reply box, press the formatting button and select quote.  

Unfortunately, the board doesn't handle formatting very well and sometimes the quote button will grab more text than you highlight.   In that case, I switch to the "code" option above.   

bd10

Too many ISAs? No at all. I do the same. At the risk of stating perhaps the obvious, please keep in mind that the £85k compensation limit is per banking group. So, an ISA with Halifax, one with Lloyds and one with Iweb is not diversifying counterparty risk at all. They would count towards the Lloyds Banking Group limit.

Langtang

bd10 said:

Too many ISAs? No at all. I do the same. At the risk of stating perhaps the obvious, please keep in mind that the £85k compensation limit is per banking group. So, an ISA with Halifax, one with Lloyds and one with Iweb is not diversifying counterparty risk at all. They would count towards the Lloyds Banking Group limit.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I had thought of that as well. It’s difficult to know, sometimes, who owns what. I had always assumed that all the individual companies were run on their own platforms and therefore subject to their own 85k limit. 

I wish I knew how to break apart quotes in the way @dunstonh has......

Copy the text from the message you wish to quote.  Paste it in the replay box. Press return after the text to ensure you have a line you can type your reply.   Then highlight that text in the reply box, press the formatting button and select quote.  

Thanks very much for your reply, much appreciated. 

masonic

Langtang said:

bd10 said:

Too many ISAs? No at all. I do the same. At the risk of stating perhaps the obvious, please keep in mind that the £85k compensation limit is per banking group. So, an ISA with Halifax, one with Lloyds and one with Iweb is not diversifying counterparty risk at all. They would count towards the Lloyds Banking Group limit.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I had thought of that as well. It’s difficult to know, sometimes, who owns what. I had always assumed that all the individual companies were run on their own platforms and therefore subject to their own 85k limit.

It is not true that FSCS protection is per banking group. You can save £85k in a Lloyds cash ISA and £85k in a Halifax cash ISA and all of that money would be fully covered. Protection is per banking licence. You can use the MSE tool to see which banks trade under the same banking licence: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/safe-savings/#tool
Splitting up your ISA money too much means that much of it will not be earning a competitive rate of interest, but it is advisable to ensure you don't go over the FSCS limit with any of your savings.

RetSol

Copy the text from the message you wish to quote.  Paste it in the replay box. Press return after the text to ensure you have a line you can type your reply. 

Thank you. I learn something new every day. 

Langtang

masonic 

You can use the MSE tool to see which banks trade under the same banking licence: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/safe-savings/#tool 

Thanks very much for the clarification, I had assumed they all had banking licences. Nice to have a handy tool like that. 

masonic said:

Splitting up your ISA money too much means that much of it will not be earning a competitive rate of interest, but it is advisable to ensure you don't go over the FSCS limit with any of your savings.

I guess most money in an ISA won’t be earning much at present. I suppose part of my question would have been, is it best to have 4 £85k ISAs or 8 £42.5k ones?