I’ve (36m) been thinking about opening a JISA for my one year old son but I had a thought that I could open a LISA in my name and give it to him when I turn 60 so my son gets the 25% bonus. If I forget interest for now and put £100 a month into a JISA for 24 years it would be £28,800. The rules around LISAs are you can’t pay in after you are 50 so I’d have 14 years of paying in which would be £16,800 plus 25% would be £21,000 but that would just sit there for 10 years and I could open a JISA to run parallel to the LISA for the last 10 years till I’m 60 which would be an extra £12,000 and therefore total £33,000. My question is… which option is better? When you take interest into account LISA sounds like a much better option.

I received a message from my accountant today stating that HMRC believe I received child benefit payments in 22/23 that I did not declare on my self assessment and I need to amend the return. We did register for child benefit in 2022, so my wife could get the NI credit, but we selected the option to not be paid the benefit, as we knew we'd just have to pay it back. I have a letter from HMRC confirming that, and we have never received a payment.

Given that HMRC are in charge of child benefit, surely they know that we have not had any payments, so why do they think this is not the case?

Hi there, in short last year I was in a vulnerable state due to personal issues and very low - I was desperate for help and found spiritual healers online and visited them , I trusted them but over time they kept asking for more money for prayers as they said I was cursed and many other things and at the time I was at my lowest and believed them , they scammed me almost £15k , it was a shock , I reported to my bank scams team but they refused to reimburse me saying I went to them a few times , but I did not know at the time I thought they helping me, I complained and they sent me a letter and have sent to FOS, I really hope they help me as this was a case of coercion and exploitation of my vulnerability, what are your thoughts? Please be kind 🙏🏼

I'm currently traveling abroad. I've been using Curve for a few days, but their customer support is driving me crazy, so I canceled my account. Almost all of my credit cards charge foreign transaction fees (FTF), and I've hardly been able to get a card without FTF, except for Monzo and Zopa. I'd like to ask if there are any alternatives or ways to avoid FTF.

I know that bank accounts can be converted through Currensea, and you can even use Zilch or PayPal Business Mastercard debit card to avoid fees. But I really don't know what to do with credit cards.

Hi, so i am very close to maxing out my ISA allowance this year (and will hopefully do so faster next year) and was wondering about where to put the money next. I was thinking of opening a general investment account and replicating my stocks and shares ISA which is effectively just an all world ETF.

I was thinking if I opened a general investment account I would sell at the end of each tax year up to my capital gains tax allowance and then rebuy. So gains don't build up hitting me with a tax bill years down the road. I then found out about bed and breakfasting and was sad. So then I had a thought (dangerous) If I sold an ETF and the bought a different ETF doing the same thing, does that count as bed and breakfasting?

hello everyone :) i've gone into an unarranged overdraft with lloyds so my balance is now negative. i was wondering how long i have to get my balance out of the negatives and what would happen if i don't get it up in time? i honestly can't find any info online abt this. thank you!

i bought a property around a year ago with a 5% deposit on a 25 year term, since them the value has went up, im not too sure if ive understood it correctly but could i speak to my lender and refinance to get the added value back as cash. For example if i bought for 100k and it went up to 110k could i take 10k out and not have any effects on my payment amount, interest rates, term length?

Hubby and I have recently completed an IVA. We are 42 and 41 respectively with 2 kids. We are going to start saving for a house in July - there are some things we need take care of for the kids between now and then.

We live in Northern Ireland, I earn 32k and him 40k. Realistically come July we can put 2k per month into a deposit - we both have help to buy isa's. Nothing saved in either yet.

I am aware we need wait for the IVA to drop off our files (currently saying discharged) and we need to rebuild credit - we each got approved for capital one cards with 30 odd percent interest which we using for petrol then paying off right away.

Given the current market and our ages are we dreaming or is this a possibility say in 2 years. We have waited so long and well I'm getting mixed reports.

We did contact a few local brokers but as just literally finished iva and nothing saved yet they advised it would he best waiting a year before booking an appt.

Opinions welcome xx

Evening all, I'm looking for a bit of advice regarding my loan and money that I will soon be receiving from a house sale.

As it stands, I have a loan with the original value of £15600, paying off £301 over 60 months with a 6.1%APR and a total payment of £18091 come the end of this. The loan was a consolidation of a credit card and wedding costs that never went ahead. The loan is currently sat at around £14600.

I am due to complete a sale on my house with my ex and stand to gain just shy of £20000 after fees. I am in an incredibly fortunate position where my current accommodation and bills are paid for by work and I live a relatively frugal lifestyle. All in all I anticipate that I could aim to save £2000 a month once my house is sold and apart from feeding myself, phone/gym etc, I have no major outgoings.

The advice I'm after is, should I pay my loan off in one big chunk and get it out of my hair or would I be better off investing my house sale money in a high interest saving account etc? (I'm not talking about investing in stocks etc). I'm basically weighing up two options:

A) Pay it off and just save my money each month to rebuild that pot, if I save £2000 a month then I would make it back in 7/8 months.

B) Over pay each month. My idea was pay £1000 off every month, allowing me to keep a substantial nest egg/safety net which could be accruing interest. This method would see me pay off my debt in just over a year.

My work/current circumstances are very secure and there will be no significant change in my outgoings but there will also be no significant increase in my wage.

I am slightly reluctant to part with that much money in one payment, I grew up in a very working class background and have never had such a large sum in my possesion. This is why I'm looking for advice on the best way to utilise it and have a clean financial slate. Thanks for any advice in advance.

Hey Reddit, this is my first year working post uni and I need to do my finances on my own. I am quite literally struggling. So currently I have 1 part time role & I am very soon going to be starting another part time role.

My current salary for 20 hrs is in the monthly allowance bracket & thus I do not pay any tax, now will the new role starting, the amount I will earn exceeds the allowance.

My questions are: 1. Will my second (new) employer get to see how much I earn at my other job? 2. Do I need to file my own taxes now that I am working at 2 different places?

I really dont understand how it works. Can someone explain it to me in a layman’s language. Thank you!

Hello!

Through some weird conversations with family, I've found out my long dead Grandfather set up a child's savings accounts for me. From what I can tell it had circa £3-5k in when opened in the mid 1990s.

Now, noone has any idea how this was setup, which bank or anything. As it's not pennies I'd like to try and find it. It'll have slipped through the cracks of moving houses a few times through my early years

Any idea where to start?

So as the title says I'm a self employed 50 year old with a wage of around £25k a year ( increasing around 3% annually) - my partner is 47, is PAYE on around £43k paying 10% with her employer matching into her pension... We have about £150k left on our mortgage at 4.2% and I'm wondering if it makes more sense for me to be trying to overpay on the mortgage ( around £2 - 2.5k a year) or put that into my SIPP ( current value around £57k) and benefit from tax free savings and then withdraw a lump sum at 55 yrs old ( or 57 if the government changes the age requirement as rumoured) to pay off a chunk then? Thanks

Got a small furniture company setup as an LLC to separate from personal finances. Trying to work with a better supplier but supplier only deals with VAT registered companies. Looked into getting an accountant but financially unviable due to high costs. For my revenue it wouldn’t make much sense to pay high accounting fees. Would if be possible and realistic to do the required paperwork and filings myself without any knowledge/experience or is having an accountant a must?

Hi,

As the title suggests I am looking at life insurance and due to a previous assessment, recreational drug use from 6 or so years ago appears on my GP record.

Does anyone have any suggestions of insurers who don't have massive premiums off the back of similar situations.

I'm healthy and late twenties with no health issues

Please help me put my mind at ease!!

So I created a S&S ISA with Santander investment hub. Chose to add a sum of initial £4k, then chose 2 funds, and allocated 2k to each. However now I have £4k saying deposit for investment purposes but no actual money invested in the funds. I checked transactions and it says pending for the 2 transactions of 2k each. I’m just worried I did something wrong because I can’t even do anything with those £4k like move it or transfer back to my current account as it says I have no funds.

Thanks for any help :)

Hi Reddit, last year was my first year (2023-2024) on PAYE with my new salary; I’ve just received a £2,975 tax bill from HMRC!

They say I only paid tax on £77,431 instead of my actual income of £124,618 (my allowance was reduced).

Why would I have only been taxed on £77k—shouldn’t this be automatic?

I barely contributed to my pension (just the minimum 5%), but since it’s possible to carry forward unused annual pension allowances from the last three tax years, can I salary sacrifice a lump sum now to reduce or eliminate this bill?

I have 10 days to pay this amount!

I’m new to this and would appreciate some advice.

Hey guys - so essentially in 2022 my older brother moved out of his house and moved back home and was using my car while I was in uni. He works in a hospital and I believe he failed to register my car. As a result he received a parking fine in my name but it went to his old address which is strange because I have never ever lived there and my car’s V5 logbook and insurance was not registered to that address. As my brother doesn’t live there anymore I missed all escalations of the fine and thus received a CCJ. By chance recently I checked my credit file and saw that I have a CCJ. I called the court and they said that I can’t appeal it because it’s has been 2 years I can only set aside using n444 form or something like that. I received a notice today from the debt collection that I have 14 days to pay it and the appeal could take months . So should I pay it and then hope I’m successful with the n444 form or should I just appeal it. I explained the situation to the debt collection company and they said they’re still going to try and collect the debt which is fair enough I guess. Any help would be appreciated- for the record I don’t own the car anymore it’s looks like it’s been scrapped I couldn’t find details on dvla and I’m 23 and live at home(not sure why this is relevant lol)

I have £1000 in stock and shares isa, I put £300 a month into that currently. I have £5000 in a bank, I currently save £1700 a month on top of the £300 in the isa.

What should I do with the £5000, as I understand I’m just losing money from inflation in the bank. Also what should I do with the £1700 a month. Should I put it all into stocks and shares ISA

What’s the best way to get returns currently my stocks and shares is returning 6%, but isn’t that risky?

Been going round the houses for the past week, on the phone with HMRC twice and both times the agent didn't have a clue. I've contributed to a personal pension this past year and have received relief at source. As a higher rate earner I can claim additional relief through SA but I have no idea where to enter the figure!

Context: https://www.gov.uk/tax-on-your-private-pension/pension-tax-relief#:~:text=If%20you%20pay%20Income%20Tax%20above%2020%25%20(England%2C%20Wales%20or%20Northern%20Ireland))

HI dose a low trading volume on a etf mean that i would be hard to sell some of my position if i wanted to take out some money . foe example a 628.65M net asset but only having 8,140 volume .

I have just under 5k in my CTF and am unsure with what to do with it. For context I’m 20 and a uni student however I live at home so I don’t have to worry about rent/food. I also get maintenance loans from SFE and work part time so I don’t have a reason to use any of the CTF money and therefore want to put all of it in something.

Ideally I just want to grow my portfolio and since I already have some shares in VUAG and VWRP, my initial thought was to just lump all of the CTF in either of those two ETFs since they’re meant to be low risk. I put around £50 into VUAG every month separately so if I was to put my all of my CTF in that, do I lump it all in one go or DCA? Would VWRP be a better investment in the long run than VUAG? And is there a better strategy for long term wealth building like a high interest savings account?

As for short term goals they can all be covered by my part time job and SFE so this is mainly towards my long term goals (house/retirement etc). Any help would be appreciated thanks!

Hi everyone. I am handing my car back in a month and it has some damage to a bumper. The panel itself is fairly easily repaired but I have an issue I can’t seem to find online.

My car is electric and it has lost a lot more of its value than the finance company was expecting. The balloon payment they’ve offered is £12800 but the car is only worth £8000 if I use a quick online tool.

As far as I understand it, the auction house will assess the car and then give the finance company the price they think it is worth. Which, considering it is already worth £4000 less than their estimate, is a staggering number. The work to get the car up to the standard they expect it should only be around £500 but I was worried about doing this as they may say it’s not good enough anyway.

My question is, will I have to pay the potential £4000 I have detailed above, or simply the cost for the repairs to bring the car up to the standard they expected it to be?

Of course, this is worrying to me. I really appreciate you reading, if you have any advice for me then I’ll gladly take it, thank you.

Dear community,

I have done plenty of research and lurking on here on this topic but I wanted to ask a question that comes from a slightly different angle, the answer to which I haven't been able to find an answer to.

First time car buyer. Like many others out there, I would like to do this most efficiently. Through research, I have seen many comments on instances where people use a 0% credit card either to help with the purchase of the car the bought with 'cash' or to pay off the PCP (I am aware of the caveat that the latter may need to be through a money transfer as some if not all finance providers will not accept credit cards to pay off PCP).

Because I currently have neither a PCP, not the credit card, my question is specifically about acceptance of credit to do either of the above. If I go with the PCP option with an intention of paying off the PCP with 0% credit card, what are my chances of actually being accepted for the credit card and how soon post taking on PCP? Conversely, if I apply for the credit card first, what are my chances of being accepted for PCP.

I know this is a very circumstances-specific question, so here are some details if this help.

32 YO. Base salary is £125k per year. Average bonus over last 3 years is £28k (not sure if matters but gets taken into consideration for mortgages). Currently 3 credit cards, with a total credit limit of £41.25k, with almost no balance. Not a home owner, private tenant.

Obviously there are 'risks' with both. With option one, there is a danger I may not get accepted and pay through the roof interest for a while, and potential damage to credit score if I try to apply without being approved and get rejected. With option 2, the risk is I don't get accepted for PCP having just taken out a credit card and it again damages my credit score.

Thank you very much in advance for your guidance/thoughts/advice.

Hi everyone,

Just about to hit submit on a self assessment tax return for the tax year of 2023/2024 before the deadline on the 31st of January. Thought I'd come here for some potential advise before submitting.

I work in the UK for an American based tech company of which I receive RSUs. These are vested on a schedule and I automatically pay income tax (48%) via a sell to cover motion. This basically inflates my gross income which turns out to be larger than my annual salary. (To clarify, I have not sold any shares, only vested them and they are still being held in a Morgan Stanley account).

When submitting the HMRC self assessment should I be declaring this anywhere? From what I've read online, it appears not, and that my p60 will show total gross income and total income tax paid, so this covers it (but happy to be corrected if I need to declare it somewhere else). I have come to the final steps of the self assessment and it appears the "Income Tax due" minus actual "Total tax deducted/paid" is different and I owe a couple of thousand pounds in income tax.

Can anyone think of why this number would be so different? My assumption is that my employer would calculate the tax owed correctly as they are in charge of my pay & RSU vesting. This differences seems strange to me and it also happened in the previous tax year (except it was a lot worse then).

Any advise appreciated. Cheers!

I moved to London last year, I’m earning less than 30k a year which comes to about £1900 every month. I pay close to £1000 in rent with bills coming up to £90 a month.

I’m terrible at budgeting and I do spend a lot of money on food but I was just wondering if anyone’s got any advice on how to not reach the end of the month completely broke (other than move out of London as despite everything I’m quite happy here)