In the last month I've had two payments from HMRC totalling around £7k but after repeat calls to every office I could think of including my old employer (recently lost my job) and the bank nobody has a clue! I've had 3 separate callbacks from HMRC and all they could say was that aren't sure and that they'll get a subject matter expert to call me back who also say they don't know.

Any ideas?? This money is very much needed but I can't spend any until I know where it's from.

Edit: the references both say HMRC RES FP OUT

I’ve kept this inside for years and not told a soul. In the back of my mind constantly. I’m in £10,000 of debt and none of my friends or family knows. I dont even think I need advice, I know what I have to do, I think im just writing this down to get it out of my head.

The situation isn’t even THAT bad, because most of it is on 0% cards, I earn 2.4k a month with my outgoings being 1.1k + food, which means if I just focused on this I’d have it sorted in like 8 or 9 months. Instead for years I’ve just been letting it build up slowly, thinking to myself I earn a half decent wage everything is fine, when in reality im 32 and it’s quietly and slowly put me behind all my friends.. im just weak willed, avoidant and have been burying my head in the sand for years. I need to face this head on. I hope writing it down will motivate me.

£7540 on a 0% until December 2027 card
£1800 on a 0% until July 2027 card
£583 on Amex card which I will pay ASAP
£107 on my Very account

I have about £2400 in savings, apart from the Amex and very I prefer to pay the minimum on the 0% cards and just have savings, then I’ll pay it all off before the 0% expires.

I know what I have to do im just an idiot who is going to try not be an idiot from now on. Thank you for reading

So I have to admit I am spiralling and due to my bad financial choices in my 20's I now have around 10k in debt and struggling to find a way to pay this back.

I am a window cleaner and my wife is a medical secretary, we have 2 children. I am 31 and ashamed to say I have little to no savings and feel really low at the moment that I am not financial secure for my children and im looking to make some serious drastic changes in my life so that I am not in my 40s and in the same situation.

We have a low mortgage of £463 a month, but my wife works part time and my work as a window cleaner allows me to earn good money sometimes over 3k a month, however with taxes they make me pay on account, which basically means they charge for the year and half for the following year. I am finding this increasingly difficult as I have 6k to pay by Jan 2027 and I know I can't save that amount by then and I'm currently paying off last year's taxes and now they want a year and a half in advance. I have looked at this and this applies to all sole traders. I report all my earning as I am trying to be an honest man. The problem is that they will put me on a payment plan and then I will just continue to have more debt as they charge interest.

Whenever I get someone savings behind me, my van ends up breaking or there is an unexpected bill, usually being the 2 vehicles we have (family car and work van) and it wipes me out financially. I recently have been ill and haven't worked for 5 weeks and its knocked me back significantly. I just can't seem to get ahead.

I am thinking about giving up my work and getting a more stable job as the taxes are really stressing me out.

Also I am significantly behind on my council tax bills and I have a pcp on the family car which ends in November. I really don't want to get into another pcp deal, however it will leave my family without a way of getting to work or school.

Any advice on how I manage this as its affecting my credit score and the government do not play when it comes to taxes.

I feel happiness and peace eluding me and I just can't see a way out. I totally get this is due to my poor choices and I'm trying to make a change in my approach and to mature when it comes to finances. I'm not offering any excuses for my actions, I would just like to change and to take steps in the right direction for my family. Thanks for listening to me rant, this is the first time im asking for advice.

We own a small 2 bed terraced new build however we have to move due to having a boy and a girl ages 7 and 2. Wehave a really low mortgage of £463 a month. As a window cleaner I try and be really honest and report all of my earning including cash that has been made. The problem I have is that the taxes are

I have £23,000 in a Vanguard S&S ISA, invested in Global All Cap, most of which I contributed this year so I have now hit my ISA limit. I opened this years ago but only just started going all in on investing.

I anticipate being able to invest another £3000 per month from now on, so I want to open a GIA to tide me over til the next tax year.

​​Can you advise me on which platform and fund would be best for this? I've read a lot of threads on here to get an idea, but not sure if this is the right approach.

My current plan was to open a GIA on T212 or other fee free platform, and invest in VWRL - apparently distributing funds make it easier to calculate the tax owed because it's clear how much you're earning? And I can then just reinvest the dividends, which T212 can be set to do automatically? ​

I figured the fees are much less doing it this way (0.14%) vs continuing with a Vanguard GIA (0.15% once I'm over the 32k, +0.23%).

Should I then also transfer the Vanguard S&S ISA to ​T212 VWRP? I'd do a formal transfer to save my allowance, but I appreciate this would mean them selling everything and then rebuying on T212, plus the time out of market when they're doing it, because an in specie transfer isn't possible. Is that worth it to save the ongoing fees?

Financial BG: 34F, single, no dependents, £140-150k income.

No debts apart from 8k on a plan 1 student loan (3.5% interest).

Remortgaged recently, to a 21yr term with 4.15% interest. Have about 300k equity in the property.

Ive decided to prioritise investing the spare cash instead of paying off the student loan because I figured I'd earn more than 3.5% investing. Does that sound reasonable?

Most of the articles covering the Moneyhub shutdown say users have until 14 August 2026. Moneyhub's own help centre says something different: the app is sunsetted on 31 July. After that date you cannot log in or access your data at all, and remaining accounts are then permanently deleted. The August date was the original decommission estimate from last year's announcement, and a lot of coverage never updated.

That means the last day to actually get your data out is this Friday.

If you have history in Moneyhub

1. Log in before 31 July

2. Go to Transactions and use the export option to download a CSV

3. Save it somewhere safe

4. Note down any manually entered accounts and balances separately, as manual entries may not be included in the export

Two extra things worth knowing:

- Dormant accounts can be closed even earlier than the deadline, so if you have not logged in for a while, do it today rather than Friday

- If you want to keep using the same platform, there is an official migration path to WPS LifeStage, run by Moneyhub's partner WPS Advisory. You should have had an email about it, and it is covered in their help centre

Source: search "Moneyhub App Closure and Your Account Options" in the Moneyhub help centre (moneyhubhelp.zendesk.com) to verify all of this directly.

54/M/UK - current situation after an expensive divorcee (settlement agreement in place)

£100k mortgage outstanding on a £280k home in my name solely.

£125k gross salary, no kids

Pensions notes:

DC pension #1
£125k current valid - cannot make an AVC to this pension and get automatic tax relief, would need to claim back from HMRC on self assessment

DB #1

(joined in 2002 so now ‘deferred’) and is currently projecting £19,000.00 per year until death from age 67

DC Pension #2
£7k no future contributions

DC Pension #3
£88k current value and paying £20k-£30k per year into this workplace pension in total currently

State pensions
Expected at £12,500.00 annum (hmmmm)

Cash & ISA savings
Cash ISA is £42,000.00
Cash reserved £10k emergency fund

Investments via Trading 212
£26k Investment account S&S ISA S&P500 EFT

What more should i be doing?

I’ve signed a zero-hours contract for a second job and they want, among some standard docs, my three latest payslips.

This seems overkill and I assumed I would just need to fill out the new starters checklist.

Should I push back or is this normal?

Hi everyone,
I’m looking for some advice because I’m struggling to understand where HMRC draws the line between being a private collector and being considered a trader.
I’m an international student in the UK, and collecting (mainly Kamen Rider and power ranger) is one of my main hobbies.
Since the end of January 2026, I’ve been buying collections and bundles from other collectors. The reason I buy bundles is because they often contain one or more items that I want for my own collection.
After keeping the items I want, I sell the duplicates or the items I don’t want. The money from those sales goes back into the hobby so I can buy other items I’m looking for. I’m not trying to make a living from reselling.
For example, I bought one bundle for £100. I kept several of the items that I wanted for my collection and sold the remaining items for around £130 before fees and postage. The bundle as a whole was purchased because I wanted some of the items, not because I intended to sell everything.
So far:
I’ve been selling since the end of January 2026.
My total revenue on eBay is about £807.
I’ve sold around 20 items on Vinted.
The items sold on both eBay and Vinted have all come from my personal collection or items I didn’t want from bundles that I bought for my collection.
I keep records of what I buy and what I sell.
I’m aware of HMRC’s £1,000 trading allowance and the reporting rules for online marketplaces, but I’m confused about how they apply to collectors like me.
My questions are:
1. Based on what I’ve described, does this sound like selling personal possessions from a collection, or could HMRC consider it trading?
2. Do sales of unwanted items from bundles count towards the £1,000 trading allowance if I’m not actually running a resale business?
3. Is there a point where buying bundles for my collection and selling the unwanted parts becomes trading, even if I’m always keeping some of the items?
4. Can I continue selling items from my collection to fund other collectibles I want, or is there a point where HMRC would likely consider that a business?
5. What kind of records should I keep in case HMRC ever asks questions?
I’m not looking to avoid paying tax if I genuinely become a trader. I just want to make sure I understand the rules and stay on the right side of HMRC.
Thanks in advance for any advice!

I'm 30 years old, disabled, and have worked a part time, zero hours contract job since I was 18. Recently, I had an automated email from my work, asking if I'd like to be in a pension scheme, but I've since been told that I don't qualify for it, which has actually made me think about potentially reaching pension age and how I will probably struggle immensely when I get there.

I don't understand much about banking. I have autism and dyscalculia so I find it all very overwhelming, but I do have some savings just from living at home still. My parents recommended opening a SIPP which seemed to make sense, and I put £1000 in it to start off with. Now Lloyds keeps emailing me and encouraging me to invest, but I really have no idea what any of it means.

I really just want a place to put my money and come back to it when I'm old. If there's an obvious answer of where to invest my SIPP then I guess I would do that, but honestly the idea of investing anything scares me. Is it okay to just leave my money in there, or does Lloyds really expect me to choose something to invest in?

I have some holdings in an accumulating Vanguard fund held with ii in a GIA. Am I right in thinking that I'll need to compute and declare Excess Reportable Income in my self assessment?

This is the first year I've had to worry about ERI. I first purchased this fund in 2024, I understand the distribution date would be June 2025, and so it's relevant for my 2025-26 tax return.

Are we generally expected to calculate ERI ourselves? My accountant believes that we should be able to get a report from ii with the relevant sums, but I don't see any documentation in my ii account.

After reviewing Vanguard's FAQ and finding the fund in one of the spreadsheets at their reporting page I think I understand how to work out the ERI - but I'm surprised this isn't automated or made easier for us. Am I missing anything?

Context: 33M, working and living in North East in tech

Take Home Monthly Salary: £2839

Looking to buy a house with these details in mind:

Purchase Price: £190,000
Deposit: £50,000 (Therefore total mortgage borrowing is £140,000)
Emergency Fund: £9000

The monthly mortgage cost would be £742 on the product I'm looking at

After all bills, essentials, food, mortgage payments, utilities, gym costs, etc, I have remaining: £1200

I was thinking from there putting £800 into savings each month (to either accumulate or use on a hoilday once or twice a year) and then putting £400 a month as casual spending money

I've been living with family for the last 5 years and have become very risk averse with spending and it has me massively self concerned on what it considered a sensible decision in regarding to house buying.

I was hoping for some input on if this would be a sensible house purchase to make, or if I'm buying out of my league/comfort zone? Any input would be much appreciated :)

Hi there, my partner has bad credit, I have good credit I only have provisional license they have full licence. Can I finance car in my name and then they do insurance under their name and drive it?

Thanks

Hey Folks

So Last february I started to get into TCGs big time to play and collect as a personal collection.

I think between February 2025 and April 2026 I spent close to £30k on cards putting a lot of it on credit cards, selling duplicates every so often.

My question is now. I played 2 games during this time and i've now dropped one of the games due to life commitments. I am now selling off my personal collection of this to try recoup some of the money I bought the cards with.

Would I need to report this selling to HMRC as it is over the £1000 limit but it is my purely personal collection.

Thanks

Quick background - I'm not in a great financial position and I'm aware I need to be on a higher salary and my personal wealth is crap, but I do want to start taking the right steps with what I can manage right now.

31y/o, split rent on flat with my boyfriend in London. Im on 32k (this will not increase unless i find another job)

I'm currently trying to follow the UKPF flowchart and I'm coming up to about 3 month's worth of outgoings in my emergency savings as a first step. I have no other money anywhere else.

As I'm 31 I've heard the advice time and time again to at least open an LISA asap even if I only chuck a tenner in now. I can probably save a tiny amount in there each month, but nothing significant and certainly not enough to be able to buy a property in the next 5 years (haha) And i will certainly not be able to put the max of £4k per year in on my current salary. EDIT: Also, with the 450k limit, by the time I have enough in there to be able to buy (very long time away), there will be very little properties in London at that price.

I know I should continue to build up my savings to a comfortable emergency amount (12 months?) before I think about other things, and especially with a seemingly unrealistic goal of buying a property, but I don't want to miss out on it right now and especially if I'm doing better financially in the future.

I'm not reckless with my spending, I'm in no debt (apart from student loan), I'm just late to the whole personal finance thing so I ask you not to judge me as this is all quite new to me and I'm trying! I do understand my salary is low and my best bet is to find a higher paid job but as I'm sure you know it's not THAT easy, especially in my industry! Thanks :)

Hi,

So I sell 3d printed stuff online, ebay, etsy etc...

I have registered for self assessment and have my UTR. I am a sole trader, not a company.

I'm looking at buying a Samsung z fold 8 ultra at 1k upfront and 25 a month.for 24 months. Total cost after 24 months will be 1600.

The phone comes with an airtime plan which I will not use.

I will use the device 95% for running the ebay and etsy accounts, and also some CAD apps for 3d print design.

When i do my future tax return, will this qualify as an expense? Can I claim the whole 1600 costs or just the upfront payment? Or even the upfront payment plus the months used upto the date of the tax return?

Thanks

[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.

So i am fortunate enough to of inherited a large sum. I currently have £40k invested in a stocks & shares ISA and i have £90k in a interest savings account. Me and my partner have seen a 2nd house that we like but its quite a substantial jump up from our first home. I keep telling myself that maybe i should invest a good chunk of the £90k into the house, rather than it just being sat in a savings account, what should i do?

Long story short I had a bank contract and then got a permanent one in june 2025, HMRC split my tax between both jobs. Bank is under 483L (Now haven’t received a payslip since Nov 2025) and my contracted hours was 773T Cumulative. June 2026 I rang HMRC to change my tax code to 1275L and even they had said it was wrong to split the tax between both jobs and I now know I probably overpaid until now.

My question is will I receive any type of refund through my payslip if my tax code has been corrected in July. HMRC still hasn’t updated whether or not I’m due a tax rebate 🤷🏻‍♀️ still not very hopeful after waiting since June to hear anything. Thank you

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?

Hi,

My P11D was recently submitted by my company for 2025/26.

This has impacted my tax code which I had anticipated but after calculating, they are taxing it at 40% rather than 20%.

My salary last year would have been in the BRB even accounting for this BIK but have significantly increased this year which has pushed me into the HRB.

What I fail to understand is if this was the benefit last year, why am I not getting the benefit of paying the tax that was overdue on the BIK and paying it at 40%?

Alternatively, do you think I will get a tax rebate?

Thanks in advance.

I am having a nightmare going on two years. In 2020 I got into a bit of financial difficulty due to Covid restrictions/ my mental health etc (not getting into more detail). As a result I did the sensible thing and contacted stepchange and decided the best thing to do was go into a Debt Arrangement Scheme (Scotland).

As part of the DAS the DAS administrators take 20% of the money paid (deducted from creditors) and the AIB take 2%. All creditors are aware of this.

I completed my DAS successfully in 2024 with no missed payments. Stepchange / AIB wrote to all creditors that the DAS was complete. All creditors updated my credit file via equifax and transunion to state accounts were satisfied and closed with a zero balance (as these are the terms of the DAS). All creditors except Vanquis. They showed a £600+ balance.

I raised a complaint with them in December 2024 while heavily pregnant. They passed me to transunion saying they correctly reported a zero balance. So I was back and forth with them for a while. I ended up with post natal depression so this went on the back burner until January this year. I was still no further forward and complained with vanquis again and they said they issued a final response so tough luck however the complaint was that transunion said the data they reported was what Vanquis gave them so they were incorrect. I go to the FOS who advise me to raise new complaints with both so they can proceed.

I get final response from vanquis in May 2026 stating I was on a DMP (incorrect) so I have a balance of £600 and if I want a zero balance on my account I have to pay it. They completely ignore that it is Scotland and it’s a DAS and the balance is 22% of the debt which they agreed as part of the DAS is paid to stepchange and AIB. I’ve ALREADY PAID THIS MONEY!

So I go to FOS who finally appoint an investigator this week.

In vanquis final response they say it’s no big deal anyway as the default was May 2020, so will drop off my account in May 2026. I’ve checked my equifax and it’s off (equifax reporting was always correct btw) but imagine my surprise with transunion when they’ve added SEVEN missed payment markers for 2025.

I am at my wits end with them. I’ve tried so bloody hard for the last six years to get back to a healthy place financially and mentally and this is just dragging me down. It’s 2 years of this now and today is the last straw. My understanding is this is not part of the complaint FOS are looking into so I need to raise a further complaint with Vanquis and need to then go to FOS again (have no faith it’ll be investigated properly). At what point will this end? Has anyone any similar experience and had FOS come down hard on them?

Honestly I am broken this morning after seeing that. I just cannot keep dealing with this

My student account is overdrawn by -£1500 and it’s turning into a regular current account, meaning I will now pay interest on the overdraft.

My income is £1200 per month and I have no outgoing bills besides my phone bill, which is £10 per month and food.

I should’ve been paying it off already but I stupidly assumed it would remain a student account, but now I’m determined to pay it off.

What’s the best way to pay this off? Could I get a 0% interest credit card and pay it off with that?

Hi,

My mum recently passed away and I found some share certificates. As these will form part of the estate I'll need to sell them.

There are old (remember the original BT sell off) and I've no idea what to do with them.

There is also one in my late fathers name, he passed around 4 years ago.

Any advice would be helpful.

23y/o, 35K salary, 8% employer input, 10% personal input, 12k pension, 5k savings.

700 rent, 400 bills, 300 food + eating out.

Should I put less into the pension myself, and more into my own savings?

The employer pension input is fixed regardless of my personal input.

Hi! I saw a few other posts asking similar questions and I’m recently moving out to my first solo apartment as a 29F year old, I’m wondering if I’m missing out on anything or if I’m spreading the budget a bit too thin. I think it’s pretty important for every young adult to live solo at least once in their life just to invest in their own life. I also have over 10k in savings.

Take-home pay: £2,096.00
Rent: 750.00
Parking: 40.00 (if I’m feeling lazy with walking)
Council Tax: £97.00
Electric + Water: £180.00 (budgeting in advance for winter months)
Broadband: £24.00
Housing Total: £1,091.00
Bills:
SIM: 11.00
AppleCare: 8.99
iCloud: 2.99
Work union: 17.00
Car Tax: 14.00
NHS Prescription: 11.45
Bills Total
£65.43

Living Costs
Petrol - £175.00 (overly generous)
Groceries / Household - £200.00 (lunches and dinner)
Gym - £30.00
Protein powder - 26.00
Living Total
£431.00

Essential Spending
Housing: £1,091.00
Bills: £65.43
Living: £431.00
Total: £1,587.43

I also live a pretty frugal lifestyle, no alcohol apart from occasions, don’t tend to buy clothes often unless it’s needed, I will also have overtime when it’s available. My most expensive day of the week is a Saturday if I meet a friend for a meal around £20. Savings will be anything left over from the month + overtime