A new chapter, An empty nest, Drama school & Last year of Uni

badmemory

How marvellous though to be able to talk about Dad's 80th & Nan in the same sentence.

Spendless

Yes, it's a long lived family. Last week marked the 2nd yr anniversary of my other Nan dying and she was exactly 5 weeks short of her 99th birthday when she passed. 

What also skews it is both me and Mr S are the eldest's of the eldest's. We'd never thought about it till DD mentioned it at Mum's bday last month is that she (daughter) was the only youngest  born in our direct line, as me, Mr S, her sibling and all 4 of her grandparents are eldest born.

Dad paid for last night's Chinese takeaway for 5 of us, saying we'd paid on prev occasions. I put £35 on a Nando's gift card for him as a gift. That's around my budget for parents gifts. more for spouse and offspring and usually less for Nan purely because at 99 it's limiting what we can buy.. 

 I checked my coin purse and it seemed a lot less than when I'd counted previously then I remembered I'd taken a handful of £1 coins to London with me as DD asked if I had any.  Ton of odd jobs to get through today, so many I don't know if they'll all be achievable. I so want the dark nights and especially the damp to be over and gone so I feel a bit more motivated in the evenings to do things and not leave things spilling over  till the weekend.

Mr S had enough hotel loyalty points to book another free o/n stay for when we stay over next month when we are going to watch DD's show. Realising how to make these points work has been an absolute godsend for us and helped us so much.

My car insurance is up for renewal, my current insurer wanted around £25 more but when  challenged asked reduced it by £75!. In the meantime a cheaper option that that had been found, £117 was the cheapest, £140 bought a better package so went with that. Paid for on the CC purely to acquire some more Amazon points and will be paid off in full at the end of the month. This time last year I'd also paid the car insurance in full but had had to borrow from savings and pay back over a few months. Little things like this make me see how far we've come.

Spendless

Just calculated there's still another 26 weekly payments for daughter's student rent this academic year, nearly £5k still to go. No wonder I can't get ahead with it! 


At the same time I also have savings languishing in a low interest account (the one that gets the monthly interest added that I talk about). This includes money  from the inheritance my Nan left me which is to replace my car soon plus money I've saved for daughter's term abroad for her degree which is later this year.  I think really it needs putting in an ISA as soon as if the rumours are to be believed but I also need easy access to them because of what the money is earmarked for - hmmm what to do. 

badmemory

There are instant access ISAs & I don't know about others but the Nationwide allow you to take out & replace during the same tax year.

400ixl

Would you end up paying tax on the interest if you used a non ISA account which will likely get higher rates. Cash ISA's are really only worth it if it is removing a tax liability.

badmemory

I assumed (yes I know) that Spendless was thinking about opening an ISA just in case new ones were stopped in the near future.  I don't think that will happen but I think how much new money you can put in each year will be reduced.  To try to force people to put money in S&S ISAs seems quite a bad idea.  I suspect that the money from the different ISAs are inivested in different ways.  They seem to assume that those of us over a certain age have all this money in savings, but even if we did once you get past a certain age stocks & shares would be a bad idea.  You only have to look at america to realise a crash is due soon.  A 10 year recovery is not out of the question & by then I will be around 90, I suppose it depends if you are a gambler or not.  I am not, well not to that extent.

Spendless

400ixl said:

Would you end up paying tax on the interest if you used a non ISA account which will likely get higher rates. Cash ISA's are really only worth it if it is removing a tax liability.

I believe so, yes. I work full-time and my personal allowance is used up with my salary. 

badmemory -  Thanks, I'll check out Nationwide

400ixl

You also get an allowance towards savings interest. If you are a 20% tax payer then you can earn £1k in interest before paying any tax on it. 40% tax payers only get £500 though.

badmemory

If you are a 20% tax payer then it would take £20k at 5% to reach £1k of tax free interest a year.

Spendless

badmemory said:

I assumed (yes I know) that Spendless was thinking about opening an ISA just in case new ones were stopped in the near future.  I don't think that will happen but I think how much new money you can put in each year will be reduced.  To try to force people to put money in S&S ISAs seems quite a bad idea.  I suspect that the money from the different ISAs are inivested in different ways.  They seem to assume that those of us over a certain age have all this money in savings, but even if we did once you get past a certain age stocks & shares would be a bad idea.  You only have to look at america to realise a crash is due soon.  A 10 year recovery is not out of the question & by then I will be around 90, I suppose it depends if you are a gambler or not.  I am not, well not to that extent.

Apologies I missed your post. Yes it's in case the amount you can put in each year is (heavily) reduced. I have a chunk of savings and from that I have 2 'definates' that I will be using it for this year, 1 is to replace my 19yo car the other is to fund daughter's term abroad studying. I'm also hoping to add to savings as the year progresses in order to recoup some of the expenditure we've had over the past few years. I think I need to open an ISA and put money in whilst we're still in the current tax year and ahead of  next month's budget. I'm not keen on having a S&S ISA at my age/life stage for the reasons you've given

I'm a 20% tax payer and I wouldn't reach the amount you've mentioned.  I've looked at the Nationwide one you suggested and after the 4th withdrawal it would reduce the interest rate. That would tick the boxes I think, 2 known things that I would withdraw money for and the option of a 3rd  withdrawal without penalty for a life curveball scenario.  

Thanks both for your help.