I am at a loss as to what to do…

LHW99

You have a lot of plans (great) with different timescales, so you need to work those into your finances too.

For your emergency funds, you want a cash savings account that is easy access (and possibly at the same bank as your current account for at least some of it. That gives you something available if you need to cover a larger bill at short notice (a couple of days hotel bills while you visit Uni's?)

Then there is money you may need in the next 5 years, perhaps the living expenses while you do the course. You could set up a group of fixed rate accounts (1 year, 3 years etc) which will give you a bit more interest than easy access, but where you know how much capital and interest you get at the end point. Any / all of these could be cash ISA (tax free) versions or normal savings accounts (where the interest would potentially be taxed).

Then you have longer term things, like buying a house, pensions etc where you can / will leave the money in for at least 5 years, preferably 10+, where you would look at S&S ISA's, pension funds etc.

Remember, you can always accumulate money in an easy access account, and then tranfer it to something more appropriate / useful when you have read / considered things more. Good luck.

Bridlington1

First of all well done on overcoming your addiction. 

redistribute said:

Albermarle said:

nottsphil said:

Firstly, kudos to you for revealing the addiction - you could have asked for the advice without even mentioning it. I'm assuming that as you managed to hold down a full-time job the whole time, you didn't need to resort to crime. In which case, I'm prepared to help.  Does (anyone) the lifetime ISA preclude any funds in a cash ISA?

No it does not. However the OP currently has no savings, so debatable whether they would be better in a non ISA savings account paying a better rate, as unlikely they will have an issue with tax on savings interest for a while yet.
Also investing some in a Stocks and Shares ISA for the longer term maybe an idea as well. It depends on what their future plans might be.

Hi Albermarle,thanks for the response.

I indeed do have zero savings as it stands. I’ve been trying to read up as much as i can the last few days to try to understand the options available.

If you're looking to save regularly from zero savings then regular savers are worth looking at. These have a limit on how much you can deposit each month (usually £50-£500/mth max) but usually pay a higher interest than other account types. There's a list of the top regular savers on moneyfacts (see below but remember to change the amount so that you don't miss any accounts):
https://moneyfactscompare.co.uk/savings-accounts/regular-savings-accounts/?quick-links-first=false

These accounts are also discussed in the main regular savers thread:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6106986/regular-savings-accounts-the-best-currently-available-list/p1

In your position I would open a few regular savers and start paying funds into them regularly in order to build up your savings and maximise your savings interest. Another advantage of using a few regular savers is that your savings naturally become spread out over a few different banks/building societies, which is useful if a bank's internet banking goes down for a day, one of your accounts gets frozen etc as you still have access to some of your savings if necessary.

redistribute said:

In relation to a property LISA I’m not averse to that - being honest I thought they’d stopped the first time buyer ISA?

I think you may be thinking of the Help to Buy ISA, which allowed you to deposit up to £200/mth and gave you a 25% bonus if you used the funds for a property purchase. This was closed to new applicants in 2019 and was replaced by the Lifetime ISA (LISA), which has been mentioned earlier.

redistribute said:

A s&s ISA looks and sounds appealing to me atm too.

Does this sound stupid?

A LISA of some sort taking advantage of the 4k plus 25%; s&s ISA and then looking into current and potentially a second pension?

Is this a realistic and sensible option with where I am at - with no savings and 1k per months to invest across the three products?

I would suggest you focus your attention on building some cash savings for now, particularly if you decide to purchase a property. By all means do some research into S&S ISAs in the meantime but I would be inclined to wait until you've a reasonable amount of savings before actually investing in them.

If you decide to buy a property then I would stick with a cash LISA, rather than S&S LISA for now. For the best cash LISAs see:
https://moneyfactscompare.co.uk/isa/lifetime-isas/?quick-links-first=false

cloud_dog

Congrats!

There a Reddit UK Personal Finance Flowchart that is quite useful for covering the basics etc.

https://ukpersonal.finance/flowchart/

friolento

Another site you might find useful: https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en

Albermarle

redistribute said:

Albermarle said:

nottsphil said:

Firstly, kudos to you for revealing the addiction - you could have asked for the advice without even mentioning it. I'm assuming that as you managed to hold down a full-time job the whole time, you didn't need to resort to crime. In which case, I'm prepared to help.  Does (anyone) the lifetime ISA preclude any funds in a cash ISA?

No it does not. However the OP currently has no savings, so debatable whether they would be better in a non ISA savings account paying a better rate, as unlikely they will have an issue with tax on savings interest for a while yet.
Also investing some in a Stocks and Shares ISA for the longer term maybe an idea as well. It depends on what their future plans might be.

Hi @Albermarle,thanks for the response.

i indeed do have zero savings as it stands. I’ve been trying to read up as much as i can the last few days to try to understand the options available.

Future plans are to return to uni and graduate with a radio therapist degree - if that’s what you meant by future plans?

@Alexland

Congrats it must be awesome to be getting your life back on track. You are still young enough to build a solid financial position.
As above its worth saving a cash buffer and checking you are contributing enough into your pension to get maximum employer matching.
But is there any reason you are not using the LISA towards a property purchase? Owning your own property is likely to make retirement much more comfortable.

Thanks for responding man.

In relation to a property LISA I’m not averse to that - being honest I thought they’d stopped the first time buyer ISA? I included a link about LISA's in my first post. Suggest you read it. They have a dual purpose- for help buying a first home or as an alternative/addition to a pension.

I’m going to look into the kind of pension my employer has auto enrolled me with and try work that out - is it worth thinking about taking out another pension too? Probably not, but worth exploring the options ( different investment funds) available in your workplace pension at some point. Also check if the employer will increase their contribution if you increase yours.

I really am not too literate in this area and it intimidates me a bit but I don’t want to let that stop me, I need to be able to make head and tail of this to some extent. It will seem a bit overwhelming at first, so do not run before you can walk. This forum can be very helpful and there are some good books/you tube videos for later.

A s&s ISA looks and sounds appealing to me atm too.

Does this sound stupid?

A LISA of some sort taking advantage of the 4k plus 25%; s&s ISA and then looking into current and potentially a second pension?

Is this a realistic and sensible option with where I am at - with no savings and 1k per months to invest across the three products?

Some comments in bold.

Alexland

Yes I'd agree with the above. For now I wouldn't worry about building second retirement pots via SIPPs or LISAs and just ensure you are contributing enough into your workplace pension to get the maximum employer contribution and then spend the rest of this tax year (ends 5th April 25) building some good cash savings and putting £4k into your LISA towards a property purchase (assuming you want to buy a property worth below £450k etc). If you have £1k spare a month that sounds like a very realistic target to get you started on a path to financial security. The other thing that you might like to concentrate on is developing your career to try and secure salary increases which would help when a lender is considering a mortgage application.

Cus

I would recommend only saving into a sipp for now. Get yourself used to putting that money away, and as it's a sipp you can't then take it out straight away. Not to say you would want to but some others in similar situations may not want to have the 'distraction' of being able to spend lots of available cash at will, if you know what I mean.

Edit to add: if you need the money in more accessible places you can have isas and savings that are locked or difficult to take out quickly 

nottsphil

LHW99 said:

For your emergency funds, you want a cash savings account that is easy access (and possibly at the same bank as your current account for at least some of it. That gives you something available if you need to cover a larger bill at short notice (a couple of days hotel bills while you visit Uni's?)
Remember, you can always accumulate money in an easy access account, and then tranfer it to something more appropriate / useful when you have read / considered things more.

Good advice and this can be an ISA as you mentioned subsequently but doesn't need to be with the same bank as his current account if it is truly instant access.  Chip ISA (currently 5.1%) fulfills this and will link to the OP's existing  current account for all transfers. It's flexible, so won't impact on the amount saveable under ISA this year.

nottsphil

 

Cus said:

Edit to add: if you need the money in more accessible places you can have isas and savings that are locked or difficult to take out quickly 

That really doesn't make much sense, does it!

BreakingGlass

nottsphil said:

Firstly, kudos to you for revealing the addiction - you could have asked for the advice without even mentioning it. I'm assuming that as you managed to hold down a full-time job the whole time, you didn't need to resort to crime. In which case, I'm prepared to help.  Does (anyone) the lifetime ISA preclude any funds in a cash ISA?

The Lifetime ISA limit of £4,000 counts towards your annual ISA limit. This is £20,000 for the 2024 to 2025 tax year.