Just open a S&S ISA. It pays out on cash in there.
Best savings account?
- Thread starter Merlin5
- Start date
Just open a S&S ISA. It pays out on cash in there.
400 goes in my lloyds 6.25 regular saver a month.
Then rest goes in my S&S isa. At end of tax year I pop some into pension. Did that for first time last year. What's handy is work bonus is paid before end of tax year.
Soldato
I may start up a SIPP and add a small bit each month, but my workplace pension fees suck, so my plan was to look at stocks and shares ISA/SIPP with another provider. I haven't really considered trading 212 as usually associated them with the cringey youtube ads lol.
I want to start drip-feeding into the stocks and shares ISA and funds though, and would probably focus this over SIPP as the money is more readily accessible. If we get a nice dip in stocks/shares I would then re-balance some out of cash ISA into stocks and shares.
I want to start drip-feeding into the stocks and shares ISA and funds though, and would probably focus this over SIPP as the money is more readily accessible. If we get a nice dip in stocks/shares I would then re-balance some out of cash ISA into stocks and shares.
Caporegime
I logged into my work place pension the first time last month....I know I should have done it sooner, and it takes like £5 a month in fees!!!!
I put a small amount into SIPP if I have spare money at end of the year.
But I also don't like it being locked away.
I've actually changed that this year and added to my work place pension percentage. But again I don't want too much in there inaccessible.
Its more important in 40pc bracket as you get that 40pc back.
You get zero tax on drawdown under the personal allowance at 20pc.
They just put your money in QMMFs, not always kept in cash, you can buy those on any platform not just T212.
Soldato
Yes but rather than the £ figure mine shows it's 0.7% of the value each year, so it really adds up, especially when you can get SIPP funds with fees much closer to say 0.15% - 0.3% elsewhere.
This is discounted from their 1% value, criminal fees really when they do nothing for it.
When I spoke with the pensions guy at work I did say we should look at where the company pensions are going because Standard Life are just rinsing fees from us.
Yeah so with SIPP mine would likely just be a token figure, say £100 pcm or so, it's not much, but it builds a beginning of sorts.
I'm not in the higher earner bracket, so my focus would instead be on stocks and shares ISA, eventually you probably want a good mix, SIPP/pension, stocks and shares ISA invested in funds, and savings.
I won't add to workplace pension via salary sacrifice because I can do better on my own SIPP and it's less complicated to manage. Get no additional benefit beyond the mandatory 4% either.
Caporegime
I started with S&S on Vanguard, put some in when I can, only opened SIPP on it last year but not put much into that. I think I can claim the tax back from self assessment when I do it this year?
But I mostly put it into my Vanguard Index fund when I have spare change.
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Soldato
Am not an expert on this but my understanding is that you need to claim back if you're a higher earner, if not then the 20% odd is automatic on the way it calculates the tax.
In my case I am not a higher earner, so when I deposit £100 into SIPP I get £125 spendable or something, because it adds some additional to the total based on tax I would have saved had I paid it pre-tax out of my wages.
This sounds great of course as it's bonus money, but also you are liable for paying tax on SIPP income later if you have too much of it!
This doesn't calculate for the 40% or so higher earner tax, hence the need to claim some back if you do this.
I wanted to pile more into Vanguard VHGH as a starting point but it's at a bit of a high point lately, so don't want to buy the top, I may adjust here on a dip and focus on it more then.
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Either self assessment or you can write to them if no SA
Caporegime
I am not at 40% so I guess I will check again.
As for not buy at the peak, the general rule of thumb is just dollar cost average, don't time the market. Just split it up, £100, 200, 300, whatever amount you feel comfortable with and do it regularly.
Soldato
Yeah I don't disagree but I want to shift my old pension pots into it as well, and that would pretty much be considered a one time buy so need to be a little careful with that. Don't think I can DCA those very easily as it's moving of the fund and buying at once.
I'm OK just getting 5% ish guaranteed on the rest for now.
So long as you're full time employed and have the tax code for normal tax rules I think you're OK not to declare any SIPP investment, but please do your own checks on this one. If you're self-employed you may always need to.
I moved all my pensions this March.
As long as your work place pensions are invested in something similar I wouldn't worry about timing the market.
Caporegime
I have about £20k in a fund from my last employment...is it easy to move that into a SIPP in my Vanguard?
Although it has gained like 25% in the last 2 years! I don't contribute into it at all, my current work place is with a different fund.
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Yeah it's really easy.
You set up a sipp on Vanguard (if using vanguard!)
Go into "transfer to vanguard"
Enter the pension ID and the provider.
Pick where you're putting it.
You can split it between multiple funds as percentage.
My aviva ones were transfered in 2 days.
Done it the **** ones took 2 weeks.
I moved 6 over. One only had 1k in it
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Soldato
It's not flexible nor FSCS protected. I want zero risk for these funds.
Soldato
I've setup my smaller pension to move across to Vanguard, it's all going into the VHVG fund, I mistyped this earlier I think.
Once it's over I'll look at shifting over my larger one, and then I'll see about adding a small monthly payment in just to DCA it a bit, but I don't think I'm going to put much in here yet, still focused mostly on other investments + paying down the mortgage some more if the rates on that get too high.
Once it's over I'll look at shifting over my larger one, and then I'll see about adding a small monthly payment in just to DCA it a bit, but I don't think I'm going to put much in here yet, still focused mostly on other investments + paying down the mortgage some more if the rates on that get too high.
Yeah I'm same I don't think I'll use it much after now.
With upping my payments to my workplace I don't really want to lock anymore away.
Holidays, mortgage, etc and unexpected costs etc can happen any time.
I'm already feeling annoyed I took out a 3 year 4.75 fix that's only half way through.
Soldato
My mortgage is fixed at 1% for another 2.5 years I think, so my initial plan was to get mortgage balance down to £100K by then. It's currently at £168K so a lot to pay off in one go. I've been having an internal re-think.
I'll look at settling some of that when it expires, but it will also depend on other factors like what savings rates are like at the time, and also what any new mortgage looks like. I do value short term flexibility some, so I don't necessarily want to throw it all into the mortgage or into a SIPP.
Assuming savings/mortgage rates are somewhat similar, or within say 0.25% of each other, I'll prioritise keeping more in the savings. My daily living expenses aren't that high, and I have most of the things I want/need at the moment.
For now, I was going to look at something like this as a split, after all mandatory payments go out each month:
- £200 into Nationwide 8% reg saver
- £250 into S&S ISA via Vanguard (into the same VHVG fund).
- £50 into SIPP via Vanguard (into the same VHVG fund).
- £500 into Cash ISA ZOPA 5.08%
I have £12K left on the cash ISA allowance this year, so at £250 pcm into the S&S ISA that means that £3k is going there instead, so I need to be careful and limit the cash ISA so that I only use £9K of it and not the full £12K. I expect I'll use my full ISA allowance split like this.
Next financial year 2025-2026 I'll probably look at switching more focus into the S&S ISA instead of the cash ISA, with the hope being that the cash ISA will be earning enough passive income then to sort of cover some of the S&S ISA payments.
2026 - 2027 I guess will be a major switch up based on whatever the rates are on things, and I think at a minimum then I'd start regular overpayments on the mortgage even if I don't wind up paying larger sums into it.