LISA addition before end of tax year

raichkel

Hello all,

I'm looking for some opinions about maximising the benefit of my lifetime ISA before the end of the current tax year. I have a good amount of money in a normal savings account at the moment, around 5 months worth of income, and I also have around £2000 in my LISA. I'm wanting to put some more money into the LISA before April, so as to get the best amount of the government bonus that I can.

I'm looking for some opinions about how much of my savings it would be sensible to put in. I want to still have a good amount of money so that I could cover the cost of an unexpected emergency, as I'm conscious that once money is in a LISA I effectively can't get it back out until I decide to buy a house.

Some further information that might be relevant is that I'm (very luckily!) able to save around £300/month at the moment and anticipate that this will continue to be the case for a year or two.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

GrumpyDil

No one can really say without knowing your full personal circumstances but given you say you have 5 months of income saved I'd be tempted to put the full amount you can put in to take this year's contribution up to £4000. That would be the case as long as you will be using the Lisa for retirement/house purchase and as long as that retains a decent emergency fund and doesn't deplete it too much.

raichkel

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81927933#Comment_81927933

thank you that's really helpful!

LeadFarmer

For maximising the government bonus..

I agree, put as much as you can into the LISA to try and get it to, or near the £4k maximum, ensuring you leave yourself sufficient £ in your savings account to cover any emergencies. If you can afford to put another £2k into the LISA then that would be the option I would take. Then consider putting more into the LISA after April 6th if possible.