Advice/Suggestions for lump sum and regular side income

AzzA101

Good morning all!

I've just gone through a seperation and sold a house and have a £5k lump sump.

I also work two jobs in which I can live on my main income and would like to do something with me second income. This is around £500-£1000 a month depending on how much work I can get.

I've searched the forum at other topics but nothing really matched this criteria. I've also never been in this situation before where I have so much extra income at hand. 

I've looked into stocks and shares but don't feel overly comfortable about it as I'm clueless, and potentially buying a buy to let property in a couple of years once I have saved some more. 

Any suggestions and/or advice on what to do would be very much appreciated.

Have a lovely day everyone! 😁

InvesterJones

You've said you'd like to do something with this extra income, but you've provided no information about what for. Once we have an idea of your aims then it's easier to recommend something to match. You also don't mention anything about pension, which usually is critical for most uses of 'what for'.

Mark_d

So you have a £5k lump sum plus a further £500-£1000 which you would like to invest.  On this basis I would suggest that a good option is to invest in a fund.  This doesn't require deep knowledge of stocks and shares - instead your choice is based on attitude to risk and the term/duration which you're investing over.
https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investing-explained/what-are-lifestrategy-funds
Having said this, I would suggest that whatever you do considers your overall financial plan.  You should consider how much cash you need available for short term planned and unplanned expenses, how much you're building up for life after retirement, your goals/life priorities...

xylophone

Do you mean £5000 or is this a typo?

With regard to your second income, do you need to build up an emergency lump sum for a year or two?

https://www.thenottingham.com/savings/products/starter-isa-issue-12#:~:text=Our Starter ISA is fixed,be withdrawn at any time.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/best-regular-savings-accounts/

AzzA101

Thank you everyone for the replies!!

The lump sum I have is £5000 and I have a disposable income of £500 - £1000 a month.

I'm not concerned about my pension as I have recently spoke to a pensions advisor with this money in mind and I have sorted that. Due to my circumstances as well I don't require an emergency fund. 

Thank you for the information posted. I will look into those

All in all I just want to put my money to use to make more money. I have no timespan in mind and as mentioned, I've never had this money to hand and I don't want to put it in a crap savings account and it not do much. 

I've seen the terms "Make your money work for you" and such. I know a lot it is just a sales slogan, but I just wanted to see what options are available

xylophone

https://www.gov.uk/individual-savings-accounts

Consider a stocks and shares ISA?

You could begin with a lump sum of £5000, then add money every month .

You might consider Hargreaves Lansdown, Fidelity, AJ Bell.....

https://monevator.com/low-cost-index-trackers/

InvesterJones

AzzA101 said:

All in all I just want to put my money to use to make more money. I have no timespan in mind and as mentioned, I've never had this money to hand and I don't want to put it in a crap savings account and it not do much. 

I've seen the terms "Make your money work for you" and such. I know a lot it is just a sales slogan, but I just wanted to see what options are available

You will still need some kind of idea of timespan to pick the right volatility - will you be upset with a drop in value of 30% in the short term if chances are over the long term (say over 10 years) it'll balance out? If you would be, then 100% equities isn't a good choice, and you might consider adding some other asset types to reduce volatility (but equally, potentially reduce return).