Cash isa or s&s isa

P933alilli

Ive had vls 60 since january 2022 and had an average return of about 7.6% per year. Ive had £20k available since last month from a matured cash isa and i recently put £15k of it in an easy access cash isa. Now i'm wondering about the other £5K. Do i put in my s&s vls60 or just add to the easy access at 4.03%? Retired but another 5 years until state pension! Potentially i may need it in 5 years but may leave it longer. Downside is it would put my average cost per unit up by quite a lot.

eskbanker

Why is an increased average unit cost a downside, especially in an ISA?

P933alilli

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82037022#Comment_82037022

just the feeling that i could have bought cheaper over th last 12 months!

eskbanker

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82037383#Comment_82037383

If every investment decision was influenced by whether there could have been a better hypothetical previous occasion to have purchased then nobody would buy anything!

masonic

If you didn't have the money in 2022, then it's all rather academic. We'd all be richer if we were able to invest everything we have now when we were younger.

5 years is a rather short timeframe for VLS60, but it would come down to how likely you'd be to need it in 5 years and whether you'd be willing to delay your spending plans or use money from elsewhere if you needed to.

dunstonh

Retired but another 5 years until state pension! 

Any reason you're not considering the pension wrapper? You may be limited on what you can contribute, but pension beats ISA in most cases.

Downside is it would put my average cost per unit up by quite a lot.

Average cost per unit is irrelevant with ISAs.

just the feeling that i could have bought cheaper over th last 12 months!

That is also irrelevant. Time travel doesn't exist, so looking back doesn't achieve anything you could have bought it cheaper 12 months ago, 24 months ago, 36 months ago, and so on and so forth.

Hindsight isn't a method used to decide whether to invest or not.

Potentially i may need it in 5 years but may leave it longer.

So potentially in five years you'll need both the money you've put in the cash ISA and this extra 5,000?

Does that mean you're spending all your money, cash and investments in five years' time potentially?

P933alilli

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82037640#Comment_82037640

I'm putting £3600 into my pension each year, the maximum i can contribute!

Maybe i need to learn how to withdraw from the pension and my S&S isa for the income and also one off purchases?

My car is ten years old, its well built and running well atm but i could be looking to trade it in shortly for example. Would i be better using my 25% tax free from the pension or using the gains made from the S&S isa?

eskbanker

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82037746#Comment_82037746

If you currently aren't earning enough taxable income to use up your personal tax allowance (?) then it's likely to be sensible to consider pension withdrawals (not just the tax-free 25%) in order to use that allowance, as withdrawals from ISAs won't ever incur tax whereas pension ones will once you're using your allowance again.