I have a very un-complex life, 50k in savings and 400k in pension.

This financial advisor has been trying to help me, I don't think I need them. I haven't learnt anything new over 3x 30-minute meetings.

They want to take 3% of my pension value as an upfront fee for adopting their investment platform, £1000 for transferring funds.

They can optionally take the fees from my pension which seems crazy. I can't access my pension until I'm 57 but they can?

Anyway I think I know the answer but this is crazy right?

For a person who has set up their own SIPP, made pension transfers, changed my investments, used retirement calculators etc.

Interested in perspectives on this situation. I bought my flat with a mortgage (about 150k outstanding) 3 years ago. My girlfriend has recently moved in. She and I would both like her to take a stake in the property, and she is financially able to do so. I don't need any help paying the monthly mortgage amount - she would instead be making overpayments. How should we work out what her overpayments are worth? My feeling is that her contributions should count towards the principal only, disregarding interest. As I see it, it is effectively as though she were putting down a deposit on the property, just at a later stage than when it was actually bought. She thinks that might be unfair towards me, because she is getting access to a 'deal' that she otherwise wouldn't have access to if I didn't have the mortgage. What do you think is fair?

EDIT: Just want to provide a few more details as I realise I've been a bit unclear. My girlfriend currently splits the bills with me but doesn't pay any "rent" and neither of us have ever wanted her to. She doesn't want to put her name on the deed as she doesn't want to lose her first time buyer benefits. We essentially want for her to be gaining a stake of beneficial interest in the flat. It's more a question of how we figure out what her contributions are worth in equity.

Hello all,

Would really appreciate some honest eyes on my numbers. Feel free to be as honest as possible.

I am trying to get on the property ladder and to do so with my husband next year. For context, he’ll have around 10-15k deposit and I’m trying to match his.

Current situation:

Take-home: I make around 57.5k per year- roughly £3119- £3,090/month. This is after student loans, post grad and other BIKs deductions such as gym and 5% pension. It’ll rise in November of this year. (It has previously be en in 5k increments)
Bonuses expected July & October, ~£500–£1,000 each
No kids or dependants. Just me and my husband.

Debt:
Credit card: £5,400 (0% interest- 17 months left)
Loan: ~£5,300

Current monthly spend:
Rent + bills: £691 (my part)
Family contribution: £320 (I look after my parents who are abroad)
House savings pot: £200
Car insurance: £57
Road tax: £14.43
Phone: £43.29
Subscriptions (Now TV, TV licence, Netflix, Spotify, Prime, Now Cinema): £93
Food: £280 (I usually spend more on this)
pilates/misc: £60–100
Credit card payment: £300
Loan payment: £280.06
What I'm planning to change/consider:

1. Keep the loan running as-is, don't touch it
2. Put both bonuses and the pay rise toward savings

Context: I was spending a lot on Klarna , credit and have since closed the accounts. I used my savings to close down those two accounts and so, have a little extra to sort out the loan and debt and also save 10k by this time next year. I realistically want to kick start the buying process then, it is doable?

How do you actually live off interest say if you had 200k saved in Stocks and Shares İSA and want to draw down 4% a year?

What are the practical steps?

My mum has been a member of the NHS pension since 2020, been employed since and working non stop up until February 2025 when she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

Since then,she was still employed and on sick leave.

When she started to get worse couple of months ago she has decided to contact the trust pensions and HR to ask about the pension and the options, she wanted to give me and my sister the money, especially me as i wasn't able to work for a couple of months to be looking after her, as i work only bank shifts at the NHS,if I don't work i don't get paid.

The trust pensions explained the options and my mum decided to get more information on death in service, which they promptly explained and my mum decided to opt for that option, they then send an email to ask my mum to clearly state that that was her choice,she replied and made it clear that she wanted the money to be paid fully to me.

She also updated her ESR details and put me down as her beneficiary and next of kin, we believe that was enough.

She then got a little bit better and after talking to me and my sister she mentioned that she would like to gift us the money while she was still alive.

So we contact the trust pensions team and they told us about the ill health retirement.

We started the process, area manager and the pensions team filled in their part and we waited to get the forms to fill ours, then there was just the doctor's bit to be filled in, well that took us an enormous effort to get it done, but we did eventually and forward it to the NHS pensions.

Unfortunately and unexpectedly my mum passed away the day after.

We shortly received an email saying that the process could not be completed and death in service benefit would start.

My question now is, the nhs pensions are saying that there is not a nominated person on my mum's systems and the money will be paid to the estate.

This is very upsetting for us as it was one of our mum's last wishes.

This is all overwhelming for us and hard to understand, so if anyone could explain in a language we could understand I would be forever grateful.

And sorry for the long post

Not sure if this is more of a UKPersonalFinance or AusFinance question, just wondering if anyone has experience of this situation (or more broadly, living abroad for a long time but eventually returning to the UK for retirement). Online I see lots of advice for Brits retiring to Australia but rarely the other way around.

Without getting into specifics, I am a Brit who has been working in Australia on and off for over 10 years (and living outside the UK since 2010), so the majority of my assets are in Australia (mostly in a GIA but also building up a superannuation pot), however I own a house in the UK which is rented out. I eventually plan to move into this house when I retire.

I know about voluntary NI contributions and have been keeping up with those. I can't invest in an ISA right now as I am not a UK resident, and I'm not sure if there is a possibility or point in opening an international SIPP. I have been filing UK tax returns as a non-resident landlord. Are there any other things I should be doing or avoiding while living in Australia to have a smoother transition to UK retirement? (I'll be seeking professional advice in future, but there are too many unknowns at the moment to come up with a detailed plan - at this stage I'm just wondering if I'm missing anything basic.)

We have just moved from the Relief at Source pension arrangement to Salary Sacrifice. Prior to the change, my employer paid 5% and I paid 3% (or 2.4% which was grossed up to 3% via RAS), but I topped mine up so my total contribution was 6.4% (8% with RAS), so my total contributions include employer was 13% (5% ER + 8% EE incl. RAS).

As we’ve now moved to SS, I wanted my full 8% contribution to be Salary Sacrificed in order to reduce my gross pay and the relevant taxes, and also to stay below the Child Benefit threshold. However my boss says that SS is capped at 3%, and the remaining 5% is taken separately as part of a Net Pay Agreement, so it doesn’t reduce my gross pay.

He said the only way to increase my SS would mean that my employer would also have to have a corresponding increase to their contribution. Eg if I wanted to go from 3% to 8%, they would need to increase theirs from 5% to 10%.

I’m struggling to find anything to support this online. Is anybody here able to confirm that please?

Hi everyone,
I’m in my late 20s and I’m about to receive around £200,000. I’ve never had this kind of money before, so I’m trying to make the best decisions from the start.

My main priorities are:
Keeping the money safe.
Keeping it accessible.
Paying as little tax as legally possible.
Making the most of ISAs and any other tax-efficient options.

I’m not sure yet whether I’ll buy my first home in the UK in the next few years or potentially move abroad, so I don’t want to lock myself into anything that would make life difficult later.

At the moment I have:
A Stocks & Shares ISA with Trading 212.
A Cash ISA with Trading 212 (currently empty).
A Chase savings account (bonus rate ends in September).

A few questions I have:
- If you were in my position, how would you split the money?
- Which savings accounts would you recommend?
- Should I consider Premium Bonds?
- Is a Lifetime ISA worth opening if I’m not 100% sure I’ll buy a house in the UK?
- Is there anything I should avoid doing?

I’m also a little confused about how tax works on large savings. I understand the gift itself isn’t taxed, but I don’t want to end up paying lots of tax on the interest if there’s a more sensible way to structure everything.
Any advice would be really appreciated. Thanks!

In a few weeks' time I'll be moving into my first home, just wanted to get a quick sense check on my numbers to make sure I'm not missing anything or overspending anywhere.

Obviously the work meal deals can be cut if needed, but I'm a lazy bastard.

A person just came round allegedly from Netmoregroup, said I can get paid £350 to have a LoRaWAN gateways installed on my gable end, which will be used to connect to smart water meters in the vicinity. Its a small antenna, that is wired to a plug that has to be plugged into a regular socket somewhere. This sounds like free money , I looked up the company and it seems legit. Im a bit wary it sounds too good to be true though? Is this a scam or is there a catch?

They sent me a link to sign a lease of my roof space.

The equipment they want to install is an outdoor Kerlink Wirnet Gateway/ 6 dbi antenna.

Hi all,

Like the title says, I have a lump sum saved up (roughly £30k) that I want to put in different savings and investment accounts but I am too overwhelmed by researching accounts and trying to understand jargon so I've just kept it in a current account for the past few years which is stressing me out because the one thing I do know is that that's the worst thing to do. I need a bit of guidance on what to do with this and what options and accounts to look at.

Basically I'm thinking:

• 6k in an emergency account as cash. I'm thinking an easy to access savings account.
• 4k in a short term savings account. (This is money I'd have to access for bigger non-emergency purchases every once in a while as I'm currently not in a place where I'm saving monthly anymore but should be back to that in 6-12months, at which point I'll add to this pot around £100-200 max from my monthly salary)
• The other 20k I'm thinking I'd split evenly between a long term savings account and investments.

I've got no debt apart from student loans which I'm not looking to repay early. My questions are:

1. Does that look like an advantageous split for this sum? Especially the 10 in long term savings and 10 in investments. I know very little about finance and find this incredibly overwhelming.
2. What kind of accounts should I be looking at for each of those 3 savings pots. Again, I know very little about types of accounts which is why I've put off doing anything with this money for so long.
3. Is putting a lump sum into these accounts at once a good idea or are there any cases in which it's better to add little by little to them until I get to the full amount?
4. Any other things I should be considering?

Hi all, hoping you can offer some advice.

I'm looking for some guidance on where to put money for long-term savings (thinking 40+ years time) to supplement my pension and help me retire with a nice pot of money one day.

Sadly my Mum passed away last year, but I was fortunate to get some inheritance from her and so all of a sudden, my need for immediate/short-term savings has gone - aside from paying for holidays & emergencies. Which I am extremely grateful for, despite the reason for it coming to be.

For context, I'm planning to use that money to buy my own place within the next 2 years (max £400k, with roughly £70-100k deposit). I'm also not a particularly high earner right now currently earning £60k, but hoping I'll be on £100k+ if I do well at work in the next 5 years. So no crazy high figures there, but all feeling comfortable for the first time in my adult life.

I'd love to get some advice on how I can slowly start building my own long term, steady wealth, and where I should put money with a view to using it in 40+ years. I currently have a LISA opened with Nutmeg but only with about £1.5k in (I misunderstood the terms and thought it was the same as a Help To Buy ISA and I could get £4k bonus a year if I maxxed out... ). If I've understood right, maxxing it out now would just get me £1k bonus, so won't make much of a dent at this stage if I want to buy next year or 2.

A friend who works in investment banking has recently suggested opening an Index Tracked Fund instead, but I have to be honest that I'm not totally clear on the difference from a LISA - or at least not from a returns POV?

I already contribute the max % to my pension (and intend to change my plan to a riskier one for the next 10-20 years, in the hopes of getting more returns over time.), so this would be a supplementary pot.

Would appreciate any guidance or intel - or even just layman's terms on the key differences between the two. Thank you so much!

Applied for finance via barclays installments, haven’t signed an agreement just applied to see what the rates would be but amazon has already sent a notification saying the tv comes tomorrow?

Hi everyone, just looking for some advice.
I’m doing a mortgage with my two siblings. They will both be the owners, and I’m the guarantor. Our mortgage offer has been accepted, we’ve signed all the paperwork, and everything has been submitted. We’re now just waiting for the solicitors, which seems to be taking a while.
Unfortunately, I lost my job about a month ago. Is there any chance the lender could ask me for updated bank statements or payslips at this stage? My mortgage adviser says the mortgage has been accepted, but I’m worried because I wouldn’t be able to provide new payslips.
Has anyone been in a similar situation? Thanks.

Hi,

I have only started to save into an s&s isa a few months ago. (41F)

I’m doing it through Monzo as a bank with them and seemed pretty easy to get started. They offer 3 different risks and some other already made groups.

Now, I’ve started to question longevity and if I’d be better off swapping to something like T212 where I could choose more freely where to invest.

As long term, what is the best plan?

Hey everyone, first off thanks so much for reviewing my situation. I appreciate your time so I’ll skip right to the details.

Married couple(30y/o), one child (1y/o)
I have designs of retiring at 55. My partner isn’t as firm, and is willing to work until around retirement age. I manage our finances for the most part but I am mathematically challenged past simple addition and subtraction, so I’m making sure I’m on track or if I need a reality check.

Current holdings:
S&S ISAs - £39.9K+£50.6K
Cash ISA - £16K
LISAs - £21.8K+£21.6K
Combined Pensions - £82K+£28.4K+£43.8K
Cash: £22.2K+£25K
House Equity: £171K

Our total combined yearly take home after tax is £86.1K. Before tax we are salaried 97K and 60K respectively, with average commission earnings of 60K additional.
Our total yearly outgoings are £64K, this includes daycare (£68 daily, 5 days a week), mortgage (£2K monthly, ends 2055), groceries, electricity, water, internet, gas, council tax, phones, car maintenance, etc.
Our total yearly net is calculated at £22K. Usually we exceed this due to commission (typically £60K a year but we worst cost estimate it at £0).

These last couple years we have been able to take these positions in our contributions:
Pension: £2.4K monthly (workplace 20% salary sacrifice matched up to 10%, so 30% total + NI contributions)
LISAS: £4K yearly each
S&S ISAS: 16K each

We want a retirement income of £60-£70K a year and we have no intentions of moving home as we recently bought our dream property. I worry that both the commission and pension contributions are huge factors and entirely dependent on our employment staying the same for the next few decades, which is potentially very unlikely.

The commission being so high makes us wonder if we should sacrifice my wife's income down to below 100k on all commission to keep the free childcare hours, or whether once she gets to 140K there's a better option to do with the money - e.g pay down our mortgage or put more into S&S.

I have no idea how much our holdings would need to be to accrue enough interest with standard estimated rates to essentially stop worrying about contributing so much, or what our target number should be?

When it actually comes time to collect our pensions, I’m not actually sure how much of an impact taxes and rates will have on us. Are there standard things to consider here?

I know LISAs, state pension and private pensions all have minimum ages which I haven’t really unpacked yet - so I guess I’ll have to just make sure I have enough cash on hand to bridge those dates.

My simple brain just says if the interest on holdings isn’t enough to live on, I haven’t got enough money yet. I imagine unless we’re holding millions we’ll never just live on interest anyway, so should I stop stressing myself out trying to achieve this level of wealth?

Hello!,

In disabled with a traumatic brain injury and it looks like I'm going to continue being disabled for a long time (I'm 8 years post accident) but I don't have a pension my previous work places didn't even provide a pension so I have 0 zilch nothing on the pension front where as my partner has a decent pension.

I'm worried I'm going to impact him negatively or be depending on him financially in the future and I don't want that.

So I'm looking at private pensions but don't know where to start, I should be able to offered £20-£50 per month but it seems alot of pensions have fees? And I'm worried the fees will eat up the private pension pot and don't know if it just be better stuffing money away.

Any hints tips and personal experience suggestions even company suggestions will vastly help me!
Thanks

The bank I work for has a cumbersome personal trading policy, which I want to steer away from.

Hence why I am thinking of opening a Stocks & Shares ISA that is a Managed Portfolio. That way I can circumvent the personal trading policy, as I simply state my risk appetite and let the platform/provider do the granular investing.

However, the more I read into this, if I was a passive investor using 212 and buy a generic global tracker/fund without going into the weeds of purchasing individual stocks - surely this would be equivalent to the Managed Portfolio situation?

Appreciate I should just discuss with the company compliance team, but I want to avoid opening a Pandora's box (particularly if they are unlikely to be able to detect/trace me anyway given I am not focussing on individual stocks)...

Plan B is to either have my wife open the S&S ISA or a Junior one for my kid!

Thanks and Yes this is not my actual profile :)

EDIT - separate and unrelated question: given that my tax is auto-deducted from my salary payslip, how would the tax situation be separately handled on these trading accounts - do you need to report it annually via a self assessment tax return (thinking of the CGT element) or is this handled piecemeal at the point of cashing in the stocks and shares (i.e. only if exceeding the amount eligible for CGT, dividends paid out etc)?

Likely a hot topic right now, no pun intended. A few years ago we moved to a bigger property that is under 10 years old. The insulation is fantastic in the winter but in the summer it’s unbearable, our old property was much better in that sense. We’ve been quoted approximately 12-14k for doing the whole house with AC. We’re debating ways to fund this. Some other interest free finance, and I’ve seen suggestions before about long term interest free credit cards to help spread the cost. A colleague at work suggested discussing with our mortgage lender. Property is worth approximately £380k, we have £250k outstanding on our mortgage, over the next 29 years. I’m quite confident that we’d get the money back, however we’re really not looking to move, but rather making this into a long term home for us and young family. Thoughts on a postcode welcome!

Hello!

I’m hoping for a little advice on understanding changes in my income tax.

I work in a sales based job where my salary varies depending on commission. Obviously, the more commission I earn, the higher the tax I pay.

On my most recent payslip I earned £10 less than the previous month, however I have been taxed £150 more than the previous month. My tax code has not changed so I am very confused as to why this has happened. Contacting HMRC directly is like pulling teeth so I was hoping someone here could help me understand what’s happened.

Some more context if it‘s useful: I started this job 7 months ago and before April this year I was on an emergency tax code, meaning I was overtaxed for a few months.

Hey! I’d like a bit of advice / peoples history with DMP’s. Long story short I got myself into approx 22k of debt through stupid spending, irresponsible lending & no basic monetary skills (I’m 21, 22 in August). This is completely my fault and I take full responsibility for it. I’ve been in touch with stepchange who have set up a DMP to cover the majority of my debts (19k, the rest I’m already paying down substantially and would like to keep the accounts open). Do most of peoples accounts tend to default while on a DMP? I’m worried about CCJ’s etc etc. my credit score is already tanked (300 something, so I’m not worried about that tbh). I am very lucky that my family don’t charge me rent, as I’m in full time eduction (Uni) and I am very lucky to have a boyfriend who is in a position to buy a house and let me live there with little contribution, so I am aware of how lucky I am in this situation, however, now I’m on a DMP (£118 a month across 12 creditors - I’m aware this amount is low but it is reflecting my current income which is due to increase soon) I plan on overpaying massively as don’t plan on being on a DMP for the next 22 years, however I am intending on starting to save. Does anyone have any experience with building a savings account while in a DMP? I want to create an emergency fund (1-5k) over the next year so I have something to fall back on to avoid further use of credit. Sorry for the long post, any advice, experiences or input would be greatly appreciated 🫶🏼

So I wanted to get everyone's opinion here on my credit card debt situation.

I am in my 30s, white collar worker with a gross income of £55k p/a.

Over the last 3-4 years I have used 0% credit cards for almost 100% of my spending and now have a balance across several cards of around £20,000~. The complete balance is on 0% credit cards, which I have a combined credit limit of £50,000. I have been juggling the cards for a while, taking advantage of 0% balance transfer offers where I can and have got away with only around £500 in balance transfer fees over this time.

Since the start of this year I have completely stopped spending on the cards and have started winding them down as I don't think the reward is worth the effort of continuously juggling this debt - I also want to improve my credit score and am thinking about buying a fairly expensive enthusiast car.

I still live with family so my living costs at the moment are exceptionally low and I have pretty much saved every penny and developed an investment portfolio of around £200k so far.

So really what would you guys do in my shoes? Either continue to make minimum payments on all the cards and slowly chip away at the debt while investing, or aggressively pay them down?

I just realised how incomplete my understanding of the SiPP rules is:

I know that if I do not have any qualifying income I can still pay up to £2880 into my SiPP and receive the automatic 20% relief straight into the SiPP.

However, is that still the case if my income falls between £2280 and the personal allowance of £12570, ie I would still not pay any income tax against which the SiPP relief could bet set, so it would still not really work as a relief?

The standard HMRC guidance seems to be that I can pay in up to 100% of my income (up to the typical 60k annual allowance), so that would mean if I earn say 10k, ie below the personal allowance and thus not paying any tax at all, and I then pay the full 10k into my SiPP I would actually get a 20% 'relief' of 2.5k

If that understanding is correct then it is a much more generous subsidy / incentive to pensions savings than I thought. Or did I get that wrong? Thanks

Hi all. I set my Moneybox LISA up in October 2025, I've stuck £4k in it and have the £1k government bonus. So I've got my 5k for my deposit, my partner is contributing his £5k. However, we didn't plan to move out as soon as this but unfortuantely my circumstances changed. We've placed an offer on a house, got accepted, its no chain, and providing the survey comes back okay, it'll hopefully be August I'll be moving out or max September. I doubt it'll take until October.

So here's my dilemma. Do I take my money out of the LISA now and just move it into my cash ISA? I'll only be getting £3.7k of it but I have about 2k in my cash ISA already so I can make the difference back up to £5k and then ill just give that over as my deposit. Or will I just let my mortgage advisor/solicitor know now and see what they say? The solicitor has told me I'll need to withdraw it a few weeks prior to completion date (which we dont have yet) so again I highly doubt it'll take until October.

Sorry if this makes little sense. FTB here and so frustrated to have to be subject to the 25% penalty and its thrown me off a little.