best savings & investment for £26000

pigandlamb

I am a university student who will finish my degree & hopefully starting work in May. I currently have £4000 in National Savings investment acc. £10000 in Premium bonds, £4000 in hsbc Graduate Acc. & £8000 in BG shares which i am considering selling. I would like a good return on my money and can afford to tie some into fixed terms. I have looked at Kaupthing and wondered if i should move it all into their savings account or should i be looking at isas as i will soon be a tax payer. Any advice would be appreciated.

drink-stella

I would put £3000 into an ISA before 5 April if you can then another £3600 after 5 April Barclays is offering 6.50% tax free

If you can tie up some cash for a year Kaupthing are offering 6.86%

Also they are the best payer for an easy access account paying 6.50%

Purple_Peril

As you will soon be a tax payer you should consider an ISA - and if you don't save your £3000 by 5 April you will lose that opportunity.

I would look at the interest rates on your savings (taking tax into consideration) and move £3000 from the account earning the least interest into an ISA as soon as possible, followed by a futher £3600 after 6 April.

I cannot comment on your shares - I'll leave that area to others who have more knowledge/experience in that area.

The above is my personal opinion, but I'm sure that others will have their opinions, which may well be different from mine!

MrMicawber_2

8K in the shares of a single company out of total capital of 26k is an unduly high proportion. If the shares do well great if they don't you are a bit snookered. You are exposed to undue risk.

You say you are thinking of selling them, but to do what? Are you looking at putting the money into equities (min 5 - preferably 10 year time horizon) or savings accounts.

I'm assuming you are quite young so have time on your side. If you don't need the money for a long time and are OK with volatility you might consider a stocks and shares ISA for your BG money, but don't you and are you?

chesky369

If you don't have to, now is not a particularly good time to sell shares, given the rocky state of the stock market.