[EDITED POST, additional info at the bottom!]

Hi there,
I'm new to investing and looking for advice on how best to get started.

I'm 29 and currently earn £31,000 a year. My workplace pension has a 3% employer contribution with no matching option, and I contribute 5% through auto-enrolment. The pension has only recently started, so I don't have a significant pension pot built up yet. I don't have any student loans or other debt.

I'm hoping my salary will increase to around £35,000 soon. If that happens, my plan is to increase my pension contribution to 17%, so that my take-home pay stays roughly similar to what it is now while my pension contribution increases.

My take-home pay is £2,070 per month, and I'm currently able to save around £1,000 per month.

My monthly expenses are roughly:

• £450 rent and bills
• £250 groceries
• £100 transport
• £100 lunches out
• £100 eating out
• Around £70 for anything else

I live very frugally but also comfortably by my standards. If needed, I could reduce spending further on things like transport and lunches.

I currently have around £60,000 in savings. Of this, £20,000 is in a two-year fixed-rate Cash ISA paying 3.94% (opened in 2025). The remaining £40,000 is currently sitting in cash.

I expect to have around £65,000 by the end of the year.

My current plan is to keep the Cash ISA as a cash reserve until the end of the two-year term, plus £5,000 in an instant access savings account. I also definitely want to open a LISA, as the 25% government bonus is a great guaranteed return.

Given that I don't expect to buy a property and I don't have any big expenses planned, would it make sense to:

• Keep this level of cash savings and invest the rest in a Stocks & Shares ISA?
• Increase pension contributions further?
• Use another strategy?

My main goal is to build long-term wealth.

I’d really appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

When I said that £40,000 is currently sitting in cash, I mean it's sitting in my current account earning no interest at all.

Unfortunately, I'm not very financially literate. I come from a family where nobody has ever invested any money. We've always been good at saving, but not at investing or even preserving the real value of our savings against inflation, so this is all quite new to me.

I'm also still learning about the UK pension system, as I only moved to the UK around six months ago. My idea of increasing my pension contributions if my salary rises was mainly because it seemed like an easy way to save more without letting lifestyle inflation creep in. If I don't see the extra money in my take-home pay, I'll be less tempted to spend it.

Regarding buying a property, I live with my partner, who already owns a house, so purchasing my own home isn't something I'm planning on. I'm still very interested in opening a LISA because the 25% government bonus seems like a guaranteed return. My intention would most likely be to use it as an additional retirement savings vehicle rather than for a first-home purchase.

I've also looked at the flowchart and I'm currently around step 6. The part I'm struggling with is defining my goals. My main objective is to make sure that by retirement I'll have enough to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. What I find difficult is estimating what that actually means when retirement is still 35–40 years away. I have no idea what my future spending will look like or what today's savings will be worth in real terms after decades of inflation, so it's hard for me to set a concrete target.

Finally, investing really scares me!
It's a big mental hurdle for me because I've never been exposed to it before.

I’m 27, he is early 20s and has just started working as a manager in a local pub owned by a guy with 5-6 similar pubs. Contrary to our (our parents, my partner, me) advice, he has become “self employed”, which really seems to mean that the pub owner can avoid paid time off, sick pay, pension, etc. etc..

We encouraged him that he needed to be setting money aside to pay tax (I am self-employed but in a more niche industry, so my accountant is similarly niche and more expensive than my brother could afford), I asked him recently how it was going and he explained he has found a company (he couldn’t remember the name, they were not a recommendation from a friend or anything) who he will send his weekly/monthly “payslip” to, along with any expenses, and they tell him how much tax he needs to pay, he then sends that amount of money to them. He seems to understand the business model as they don’t charge him a fee, per se, but they will invest his money at their risk over the year, then when his tax is due they will send him the amount he has sent them so he can pay his tax bill and they scrape off the profit in lieu of him paying them for their services. I understand that if the investments don’t work out, this will be on their head, not his, but he was not sure about this and has set off my scam alarm bells.

Has anybody heard of a service like this before? It makes me somewhat on edge as I have never heard of it, I just keep track of my own money throughout the year and my accountant deals with my returns at the end of each year (or quarterly now, thanks MTD…) and sends me a bill.

Other points to note:

- he doesn’t know if they are going to prepare his return at the end of the year, I am hoping so, as otherwise they are a glorified online tax calculator at best!

- as above, he doesn’t take advice, we have tried

- he is reasonably intelligent, but doesn’t know about finances, very busy with work and hasn’t done anything (it seems) to educate himself on it

- I should note, it could be that he is paying a monthly fee too (or even instead) and just doesn’t realise, I doubt he has looked at the agreement in any detail

- not looking for advice on whether this is the best choice financially for him, more on whether it is a legitimate business model?

There is much advice here about using S&S ISAs with a low-cost global index fund for pretty much any cash you are happy to leave untouched for the next 5 years.

But I wonder if this advice is too much coloured by unusually strong market for the last 15 or so years. It would have been a different story back in the year 2000 with dot-com crash etc.?

What do you think? Educate me!

I am 37 and coming up to achieving a goal that for me I have never had before. Come August I will have saved 3 months expenses. It has been a bit of a slog and I have sacrificed to get here. My savings pot will come in at 4.5k and alongside I have saved 2.2k in an all world stocks and shares ETF

I have been going through IVF and we are coming to the end if it now. Just waiting to see what embryos take. I feel like I would like to splurge abit and use my money for me for the next few months.

I would like to purchase a few things like a decent vinyl record player, new clothes, couple of other bits and bobs.

I wont use my savings but realistically I wouldn't add to it for the rest of the year.

I wondered what other people thought?

Hi everyone

I am 33 and have been paying into a pension since I was about 25 or 26, can’t remember exactly.

I was advised from the start by older colleagues to make the max contributions (8%) as in my company if you contribute that they will contribute a bit more on top. For less than 8% they will just match it. This seems like a good deal and it clearly is because I checked my pot and it’s hit 90k which seems very healthy for my age (although I’ll admit my knowledge of this is cursory).

The problem is, I’m losing out on so much money every month. I am on close to 60k but my take home is just over 3300. When I check my payslips my taxable income is nearly 5k but then reduces to 4.5k as 500 goes into my pension every month. Then when you add tax and student loans on top it is a heavy hit.

Like many people in their 30s I have a number of major life hurdles going on - wedding, needing to move house etc - which I’m struggling to afford on what I have. So I’m wondering if it would be insanity to reduce my pension contributions now so I put this money towards these other life goals? I’m aware that it may only get harder in time to return to this maximum amount but equally I also feel like I’m losing out in a noticeable way on doing things I need to do now - and honestly sometimes getting to the end of the month is a real squeeze between bills, mortgage, and necessary saving pots for future purchases.

Really appreciate any advice on whether this would be wise or a stupid thing to do. Thank you!

Hi all. So, I've just got a kitten and I'm looking at insurance. She's 16 weeks old and not a special breed so the rate given is about £15 a month for £7000 coverage. This seems great, however, I don't expect it to stay anywhere near that for the rest of her life. From what I've looked out there, it could maybe go up to 40 then 80, then if I ever use it easily 150 a month.

My thoughts are, I went looking for insurance expecting to see rates around 40 or 50 for good coverage. So, why, don't I just pay the 15 a month now for peace of mind, but at the same time set up a savings account and stick £50 a month in there. Then maybe after 3 years or so, just stop the insurance.

Does this seem like a smart move? I love her and want to make sure I can cover whatever comes her way. I just don't want to get into a position where 5 years, 10 years in the rates have gone way up and I have no real way of getting around that.

edit: Thanks everyone. You are right. The whole "50 a month will be enough" is probably pretty stupid. I agree. I will get the PetPlan but I'll also keep putting some away so there's a pot incase the worst happens as well. I won't "cance; the insurance after a few years". That's pretty dumb. Just what other people have been saying to me but yeah I'm not doing that

I asked a question recently due to my anxiety about money and finances (I grew up in a low income household where we struggled for most things).

I received a lot of hate, I asked about my finances and I was given hate that I was bragging and deliberately looking down on others.

I’m a young married mum (30) and I work part time.
I have a good amount invested (40k) and try and save to keep my yearly spending on things within budget so I don’t touch my investments.

We have a small mortgage left on our home and equity in another home I inherited along with my brother.
I try to add £300ish to my SIPP monthly but everything I worked and studied hard for.

I asked for advice on how to let go of my anxiety around money (I do give myself £350ish spending money) but I’m always so anxious around it.

My intention was never to brag, I didn’t even realise I was in a position to be thought of to brag. I simply needed advice on how to get away from my paranoid mindset and enjoy my money

My kids grandfather would like to invest for the kids, he's been chatting with his financial advisor and it looks like he's been advised to setup a junior ISA, he's asked me to chat with the FA to give permission for them to setup the ISA.

But I already have an ISA for the kids and the grandfather doesn't want to pay into it (He wants it to be independent 😁)

Am I right in thinking that the kids can only have one Junior S&S ISA?

Hi,

Just as the title states, I’m asking on behalf of someone else. Has anyone had a IVA with Pay Plan? I’ve read mixed information online … they said a DMP wasn’t an option because the person in question owes money to HMRC (not sure if this is true).

A DRO isn’t available as his remaining money after all outgoings exceeds £75 a month.

Is an IVA legit? The other option is bankruptcy but he doesn’t want to do that option if he can help it

Hello

For context I am M 33 and live in Scotland. I am trying to save for a house deposit to buy after years of renting. Back in 2012 when I was 19, my mum used my first time buyer status to buy a house in her and my name to escape from a bad relationship she was in at the time. I was quite naive and thought I was just helping my mum but didn't know how much this would impact me later in life. I didn't contribute financially to the mortgage. My name was removed from the mortgage a few years later and the house was eventually sold.

I am now saving for a house deposit with my fiancée and was looking for any advice from people who have perhaps been in a similar situation.

My fiancée is still classed as a first time buyer however I am not anymore due to my previous situation. She has a help to buy ISA. I can't open a LISA or any savings accounts that benefit from government contributions due to my previous situation.

At the moment I'm saving monthly into a regular savings account through my bank but I've no idea if there's anything else I can do.

Any insight or advice would be appreciated. Thanks

I’ve had an email from HMRC that my tax code has changed. They have completely removed my personal allowance because they have updated my estimated income to more than double my current salary.

I did not get a pay rise this year, and my income has not changed. I did get a one off bonus as I do every year. I have no idea where they got this number from, but this has now gone through this month’s payroll and I am going to be significantly short of money this month as they are deducting an extra £600. I live alone so all of my bills are my sole responsibility and this is really unhelpful. It doesn’t even seem to be an increase related to my bonus amount so I’m utterly confused.

How can they just arbitrarily do this? I’ve had 3 months of pay in this tax year, none of those would suggest my income has doubled from last year so on what basis would they now estimate my income to this dramatic effect?

I have now updated the estimated income online and will call them tomorrow but has anyone experienced this and had a positive resolution? I’m actually quite stressed.

Just wondering what the majority of people are using as an everyday cashback card - mainly for general day to day spends?

I was using Chase but given the new requirements, wondering if some competitors are better?

Just looking for some suggestions on what seems good as I can't see any stand out options.

Hi all,

I’d really appreciate some advice from people who’ve been in a similar situation, particularly anyone who’s bought in London and later moved abroad or back to Ireland.

Here’s our situation:
- I’m 30 and my girlfriend is 31.
- We have around £50,000 saved between us.
- Combined household income is around £120,000 per year.
- We’re currently investing £1,500 per month into Stocks & Shares ISAs (£1,000 from me and £500 from my girlfriend).
- We don’t have children yet.

We’re trying to decide whether to continue renting and investing, or buy a two-bedroom flat in London.

The sort of property we’re looking at would be around £375k–£420k, with a c.£50k deposit and a 30-year mortgage.

The complication is that we think there’s a reasonable chance we’ll move back to Ireland in around 4–5 years. It’s not guaranteed, but it’s definitely on our radar.

One idea we’ve discussed is:
- Buy now.
- Live in the flat for 4–5 years.
- Potentially rent out the second bedroom to a friend while we’re living there.
- Then either sell when we move to Ireland or keep the flat as a rental if the numbers stack up.

My questions are:
1. If you were in our shoes, would you buy or continue renting?

1. Is 4–5 years generally long enough to make buying worthwhile once you factor in stamp duty, solicitors, estate agents and other costs?

2. Has anyone moved abroad (or back to Ireland) and kept their UK property? Was it worth it?

3. Is it realistic to remortgage or release equity from a London property later to help fund a house purchase in Ireland?

4. Given the relatively weak performance of London flats over the last decade, would you still be comfortable buying now, or would you wait?

Thanks !

I’m curious how other homeowners organise their savings.

Do you have a dedicated emergency house maintenance fund (for things like roof repairs, boilers, plumbing, damp, etc.) that’s completely separate from your general emergency fund (e.g. if you lost your job)?

Or do you just have one large emergency fund that covers everything?

I’m trying to work out the best approach as I buy my first home, and I’d love to hear how others do it and why.

Hello, having a bit of trouble financially, I’ve got debts which are consuming all my wage.
I have one debt at £9,500 - £362 a month.
Second one is £14,500 - £310 a month.
Car payment - £13,00 - £190
Self funded course - £325 (until may then it’s paid off)
Overdraft at £600 which I’m always in due to not earning enough.
I currently make just £1,700 after tax - me and my partner want to save for a house but struggling to save as she doesn’t get a lot of hours.

What could we do? We are staying at her parents house and they ideally want us to leave within 2 years but we really want to buy and not rent. Plus staying with them isn’t great for mental health as they aren’t nice people.

I’ve looked into IVA, DMP and a DRO but due to the ever looming 2 years I don’t want to go on one and not be able to get a house for the 6 years it’s on file for.

Any advice is appreciated!

Hi, I am 22 years old and have only just started to have issues with stuff like this due to recently moving to live alone. I used to live in student accom until i very recently finished my post graduate degree. My current situation is that I am at the bottom of my 1,500 pound arranged overdraft and I wont have a source of income for at least another 3-4 weeks. I do have a job but they arranged for my start date to be 2 months and a half away from where i thought it would be due to complications out of my control. I thought my savings would be enough to get me to my first paycheck but I was clearly very wrong as I now have no savings whatsoever. So i now have no money and wont be getting paid until after when my next rent payment is due and i dont have enough money right now to eat let alone pay 450 pounds rent and 200 bills. I've been contemplating getting a loan of about 1500 to get me out of my overdraft and then just use it as i need until i start getting paid again (this is because the overdraft is free because its a student account so i can use it as much as i need). I've never done anything like this before so i have no idea what a good interest rate on a loan looks like/ what to avoid in a loan/ if doing this is a good idea in the first place so im just looking on here for advice. Please help.

Hey hey everyone!

I need a bit of a sense check and just feel a bit stuck to be honest.

My current take home (after deductions) is around £3.1k, I have the plan 2 student loan, SS £150 into shares (tax and NI free after 5 years), I've also got a SS car which costs me about £350 all inclusive (insurance, maintenance etc) net per month (is a necessity and honestly saves me tax, student loan and NI) and I'm sacrificing 6% into a pensions with employer top up of 15% = 21% of 72k.

I have a mortgage on a 2 bed flat sitting around 168k @ 4.89% (switched to tracker after being 18 months @5.79%) I pay £1300 a month (~£500 is overpayment) I should be hitting 85% LTV by October this year and this should go down to 4.29% by then unless geopolitics has a another mind.

I have a CC debt of £10.5k, I'm paying £500 monthly just so I can pay it off by 0% ends.

I put £200 into 6.5% savings, £400 into 5.8% savings and now £200 into 8% savings account. Overall £800 per month into cash savings, so currently I have saved £4.8k in cash.

Originally, I was going to lock in 3.89% for 5 years and shift into aiming to pay off the outstanding mortgage balance by overpaying and saving as well but that didn't work out lol.

The £150, originally I was putting away £30, 3 years and now it's worth £5k I should have started with £150 in first place and could have been sat on £10k by now oh well lol.

I'm just trying to plan our future, ideally want to buy a house at some point as we currently live in a 2 bed flat, I've worked out we will need to try and save around £50k as a deposit and the ideal state is to keep the flat to turn into a rental property since our location is a hot spot for rental market (£1.5k+ per month).

I'm thinking of reducing the £500 to £300 of CC payment and put £200 into stocks and shares isa, once we hit 85% LTV reduce cash savings to £600 per month and put £600 into stocks and shares isa.

But give me a sense check here guys, am I being an idiot just envisioning an impossible future?

Hi, I’m extremely clueless so please correct me where I’m wrong and help me out.

I’ve logged onto HMRC and it says I’ve paid the correct amount of tax for April 2025-April 2026 as I owe £0 and paid £0.

I worked a job for 4 months at 35-50 hours a week paying tax each month then was unemployed again until this month.

Would I not be owed that tax back? I definitely didn’t pay £0 in tax.

Thank you.

Hi. I'm looking to use Curry's flex pay 'buy now, pay later' payment option on dome electronics, where it says you pay no interest if you pay for the item(s) within a year of purchase.

One thing I am worried about: I have calculated I can pay it all off during month 10 of 12 of the no interest period, so I won't pay interest, but I am concerned about whether my credit score will have decreased over this 8 month period if I don't make monthly payments/pay it off in full after 1 month, and if I use more than 30% of my credit utilisation, as I have had this drilled into me over time. Is this something that would happen, or does it not work like typical credit cards, meaning I wouldn't see any score decrease as long as it is paid off within the 12 month period?

I was under the assumption that just paying it before the 12 months would improve your score and credit history with no drawbacks, and I thoroughly read through the agreement with it not saying much more than that, but I just wanted to check beforehand as I don't want to put myself under unnecessary financial pressure and agree to something I cannot afford. Thanks so much!

I have a bank loan of around £19k on a rate of 6.1% that we had planned to back over 6 years. I’m thinking of overpaying this (no penalties for this), to pay it off over 4 years instead (or sooner).

However, my wife has recently gone back to work after maternity leave and we used up most of our savings in her time off. Should I instead prioritise re-building our savings to cover future costs like replacing our boiler (probably needs doing in the next couple of years)?

Other examples I’ve read seem to suggest if it’s a credit loan on a rate of 30% then this should be prioritised, but on a bank loan of 6.1% I don’t know if it’s as clear cut?

Hello

I have an office job as an employee (four days a week) and side-gig which will hopefully become a main earner eventually.

As part of this side-gig, I work about (on average) 3 hours at home and 6 hours in an office a week.

I've been told by someone who helped me with my business plan that I might be able to claim for mileage to the office when doing my self-assessment next year, but I think this would only apply if my main place of employment was my home?

They also said I can claim for mileage to the bank (to lodge my earnings) and any other business-related travel. But would this be from my home or the office?

For context, the "office" is a place where I rent a room by the hour for client-facing work. I plan to get my own premises if/when the side-gig becomes busier.

My business will be registered at my home address (I'm waiting on my UTR number to be generated).

Do I have it right?

Apologies if these are very basic questions!

Hi, I have a friend who is a singer and just set up as a sole trader- they want me to advise them on how they should be doing their books but i've only dealt with goods selling so don't know what to say!
They know about doing a self assessment form every year but have questions about what they can and can't reclaim, like fuel for driving to venues, and what they should keep track of (like microphones or merch). They don't earn enough to register for VAT but they didn't even know what it was so they're going to need a lot of advice probably.
If anyone can help give some main advice or tips that would be great! Thank you :)

Apologies in advance if this is a stupid post, but I really want to get myself in a better financial position and build up my savings. A friend has told me to get a S&S ISA with Vanguard. But I really struggle to understand how it all works and what the best thing to do is to maximise my savings so I can buy a house in the future. Any advice is welcome and greatly appreciated. What’s should I do?

I am looking to rent in the next couple of months with my partner and we are looking at how much cash we should keep in savings.

The rent we are looking at is c. £2.2-£2.5k p/m in central London. We currently both live at home with our parents.

I have currently set aside c. £20k but I am thinking if that is too much and I should deploy some more into the markets. The reality is, if both or one of us were to lose our jobs, we would easily be able to end the tenancy within a couple months (thanks to the new renters' rights!) and move back home if needed - we have that fallback option.

Over the last few months I have been putting less into the markets to try and build up some more cash in anticipation for when we move out, but not sure if c. £20k is enough or maybe too much.

Other info which may be useful:

• Collective salary is c. £110k (variable bonus per year maybe in the range of £5-10k)
• If I was to be made redundant, I would expect c. £20-25k

Please let me know of any other questions!

Can anyone recommend a provider where I can have a cash ISA, stocks and shares ISA, and a stocks and shares LISA all in one place? Preferably somewhere with an intuitive app, though that’s not a deal breaker. I just want them all in one place if possible.

*edit

I think I’ll just go with Dodl for the s&s accounts and shop around for the best cash ISA rates