Investment & Investing

(I think setting up a Shareview account may take a few days to do id checks...by the time I sold my shares I'd had the Shareview account for a while so I don't remember that bit as well).

I have some money coming my way, about £10-12k. I know that's not much to a lot of people but it's the biggest chunk of spare money I've ever had. I've Neve invested money before but I'd like to do something better than putting it in the bank. What's a sensible option for me, low risk. I hopefully won't need it for the time being.
Thanks

If you want to get the job done in a reasonably quick amount of time then opening an ISA investment account with Nutmeg or Vanguard or H&L and picking one of their lower risk funds could do better than putting it in a bank at the moment. If you feel Nutmeg is for you then you can use my referral link and I get a few quid.

It's a bit of a weird time TBH - if you do need the money back in the short / medium term then one of the higher interest rate accounts in a bank might be a better bet. Critical to compare what the banks are offering at the moment.

^whs but also consider Premium Bonds

I’d say premium bonds if you need / want the money in the short term (next year or so), one of the other options if longer term.

My own personal experience was that my nutmeg has outperformed my vanguard account, but YMMV

There is a UK personal finance flow chart that may be worth a quick look, plus lots of info on Monevator.com.

Yep to the above.

I've had 30k in premium bonds for 9m and am so far earning 2.5% on that (amount doesn't matter but makes it easier to work out % given infrequency of winning at lower amounts).

Or take some advice from an internet stranger and buy some Eargo stock and see how that gets on for you

Thanks for everyones advice. I'll start looking into all of those option.
I think I'm a little way of investing in stock. I literally have no idea what I'm doing.

which bonds?

I've had 30k in premium bonds for 9m and am so far earning 2.5% on that

I think you have had pretty good luck there. The "prize rate", i.e. the actuarial expected rate of return, is 1.4%, but would likely be lower on £10k as you say. Still probably equivalent to north of 2% in a bank account though given you pay tax on interest but not on PB prizes.

Yeah and a couple dry months and it will go down - just thought useful to give some idea. It's not gonna earn you 5-10% but in these funny times it's a pretty simple way of putting money somewhere for a bit.

I do believe they've just increased the prize rate to a cool 1.7% which aint too bad - still similar to the Chase rate floating around at the moment.

But it'd be cool to win the mil still.

My mum won £50k on premium bonds last week (got the letter on Saturday). Worthwhile investment!

it's a pretty simple way of putting money somewhere for a bit

Yeah, don't disagree with that. Just don't rely on getting the cash out in a hurry if, e.g. you need to complete on a house (ask me how I know)!

Winner winner, mum's buying you a chicken dinner!

It's 1.4% on premium bonds. you don't get anything until they've been in for a full month, so if you buy them today it'll be 2 August before any interest is paid out. Then you've got a few days' wait before you can withdraw.

Wouldn't bother personally - I'll be withdrawing mine this month. Used to be alright when the rate was higher than savings but that's not the case any more as a normal Chase savings account will give you 1.5% easy access. Here's my referral spam - they're closing referrals tomorrow at 11.59 so don't hang about https://link.go.chase/emNK/refer?code=BCkjd8YB can always move it back into PBs later although you do miss out with that one month waiting period

But I would probably stick £10k Vanguard All World if I didn't have any short term plans given inflation rates at the moment

I got cash out in 2 days... no issue

I was surprised. I don't think she has ever won a raffle before, never mind a pot like that.

For some reason they made me wait the 2 days then take £10k out per working day. Took more than a calendar week to get out entirely.

Used to be alright when the rate was higher than savings but that's not the case any more as a normal Chase savings account will give you 1.5% easy access

As I said upthread the tax position is different so net net it may still be better to be in PBs.

Ah yeah, true. But you need to be earning £1000 in interest before you pay tax IIRC, i.e. £66k in cash at today's rates

weird, I pulled the entire out in one day.

I used the MSE calculator and it worked out worthwhile to stick it in PBs

I remember reading a breakdown of how they get to the actuarial rate, based on the concept of “average luck,” which I found quite compelling. As my mother used to say, “You never know your luck in a raffle.”

Where should someone look at sticking 10k if they may need access to it, but likely be happy to leave it alone for 3-5 years?

Currently it is in PBs but seems a "waste" as it is accruing roughly fuck all on a regular basis.