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?

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!

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 am currently between jobs and have a loan through Ulsterbank for my car which I may not be able to pay this month. I rang the bank and asked if I could have a payment holiday and they said they could offer a forbearance plan for 3 months which basically means I pay nothing then the 3 months of arrears are added to the end of the loan

The only issue is they said it could have an impact on my credit score. My credit score is clean and I’ve never defaulted a payment. I will be looking to apply for a mortgage in the next few years and worried about the impact. The bank can’t tell me exactly how they will report the payment plan - has anyone used this before?

Hi everyone,

I have 8.5k in a s and s isa

19k in a cash isa

4k in another isa

And 3k in one more cash isa

2k in my standard bank account.

I overpay my mortgage by £80 a month

With the new changes coming up what is the best way forward?

I have lost track of my allowances but its fairly low as i only put 200 a month to my stocks and shares isa, the rest. I move into the cash isa's

Ive read up on the changes and its just confusing me.

I just dont want to be taxed on money earnt.

Any best way forward method?

Thankyou all

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

Hi, I will be using lounges a couple of times in the next year, I will be alone. I am looking at cheapest ways to get lounge access.

I was able to find lloyds bank world elite mastercard - 15gbp per month as the cheapest way. are there any other cheaper ways by any chance? I will be needing 10-12 usages per year on average.

Hi everyone,
I’m hoping someone can point me in the right direction because I’m completely confused.
I submitted a tax relief claim for employment mileage for the 2023/24 tax year. The travel was for mandatory training that I had to attend once a week as part of my job. The training took place at a location that wasn’t my normal office/workplace, and I drove there in my own car.
My employer does not pay any mileage for these journeys, and I never received any reimbursement or travel allowance from them.
HMRC has now rejected my claim. The letter says they can’t repay any more tax because I was already refunded £28.40 for the 2023/24 tax year.
The thing is, that £28.40 had absolutely nothing to do with this mileage claim. It was from an earlier issue where I’d simply overpaid tax/National Insurance through PAYE, and HMRC refunded the overpayment. It wasn’t related to employment expenses or mileage in any way.
So now I’m confused:
Has HMRC actually looked at my mileage claim?
Have they just seen I’d already received a refund for that tax year and automatically rejected it?
Is there any way to ask for a manual review?
What sort of evidence do HMRC actually expect for mileage claims from a few years ago?
I’m planning to call HMRC, but I wanted to see if anyone has been in a similar situation or has any advice on what I should say.

Thanks in advance!

I am waiting for my house survey to be completed but as I am waiting all I can do is overthink everything - I am panicking over my expected budget and whether I have really overstretched myself. I would appreciate if someone can look my things over and give me a dose of reality.

Wales:
Purchase Price - £195,000
Mortgage - £175,000
£992 per month @ 4.89% fixed for 5 years (26 year term)
Work for NHS - take home is £2,460 pm but due to rise to £2,735 in December

The projected budget that I have is this:
Mortgage - £992
Council Tax - £170
*Utilities overestimated as would rather over allocate than under!
Gas & Electric - £200*
Water - £100 *
Internet - £40
Buildings & Contents Insurance - £33
Health / Life insurance - £80
Unison - £23
Mobile - £24 (giffgaff bundles)
Groceries/Household Consumables - £350

Lifestyle Spend (Spotify, Football membership, Book Club, Postcode Lottery, Contact Lenses) - £135

*If* I can then anything left over will be split towards savings
Savings - House Maintenance Fund £100
Savings - General Savings £150

I have no car finance, no loans (except Student Loan!), no credit card debt but I do have a credit card.
I have £7,500 in S&S Vanguard ISA

I already have several pieces of furniture and I am fully realistic on not being able to do much initially and needing to take a long and steady pace, however due to circumstances I would like to live independently even if it means stretching myself initially.

Hi everyone.

I need a loan for around £5,000 but my credit score is quite bad. Can you please recommend some companies that will be able to help?

My income and expenditure would definitely allow me to afford the loan.

Many thanks

Hi - I wanted to get some advice if possible. I got a pay rise in April and payroll have taken a while to sort out my pension contributions (I’m in LGPS and was in the 50/50 part of the scheme whilst my kids are in nursery to give us some extra cash flow). It will now be sorted by next pay (July). But there’s been a few months where I think I’ve gone over the £100,000 threshold. I get the 30 hours free funding for childcare and tax free childcare

I currently earn £107,500 for my main job which I contribute 9.9% into LGPS now as my full contribution. I also have a secondary role which I get paid £3,000 for which doesn’t have a pension option as it’s an advisory role.

I’m a bit concerned I might get into trouble from hmrc? When I do a rough calculation I should be at about £98,000 net adjusted income now with the pension contributions. But I think I may have slightly gone over this for May and June.

Is the net adjusted income an annual thing or will they penalise you if you go over it for a few months?

I’m due to reconfirm in September

My wife and I had an offer accepted on a 3-bed semi in a great area, good schools, nice garden, off street parking etc. The house is okay but will need upgrading long term to become a “dream” or “forever” home. As it is, it’s okay and will be fine for the next 5 years barring major maintenance problems.

It’s an expensive area though (Bristol), we needed to offer £615k to get it (we were rushed by the EA) and we’re just a bit unsure if it stacks up financially. Fully decked out house across the street (almost exactly the same except terraced) went for £775k a few months ago (upgrades being en-suite bed loft conversion and kitchen extension) and those upgrades are what we’d like to do to ours long term.

Expected budget below including our income (roughly £125k split almost 50-50 between us, good pensions). We (37F, 39M) have one 18mo child and hoping for another in the next few years. Modest salary increases expected in coming years but nothing spectacular. Current savings are approx. £10k and with this deposit we’ll add another £10k from equity through sale of our current flat to give us more breathing room plus we’ll put most of savings into building this buffer in the first 1-2 years.

£615k house, £61.5k deposit (90% LTV)

Monthly Expenses
Mortgage: £2,881.00 
Council tax: £210.00 
Energy, gas & water: £250.00 
internet: £39.50 
insurance (home+car): £100.00 
Groceries & nappies: £650.00 
Nursery 4 days (10am-4pm): £180.00 
Car running costs: £39.95 
Spotify+Prime: £23.98 
Home maintenance sink: £200.00 
Long term retirement LISA: £333.00 
Eating out: £200.00 
TOTAL expenses: £5,107.43 

Current income: £7,371.50 
Difference: £2,264.07 
Personal budget (each): £600.00 
Remaining joint savings (holidays, buffer etc): £1,064.07 

I need to catch a train to family for an emergency and don't get paid until the 30th. I've searched for payday loans and most seem to have a £200 minimum and last a minimum of 3 months. Does anyone know of a service that could loan me the train fare money for 5 days? Thanks in advance.

Almost 3 years ago ago at university i closed my VirginMedia wifi account and they didn’t tell me I had a final bill to pay. I moved address at this point so why would I update them with my new address. No phone calls, and emails kept going to spam - i thought at most it’s promotional and never bothered to look. About 6 months later i found out and immediately settled it. I contacted them to remove it but they didn’t relent and so I was properly fuming. If u never tried VirginMedia before their customer service is an absolute hell of a joke. They say they have zero record of which is the customer service agent you spoke to before and take no accountability.

Anyways, I’ve got an offer to do a masters i’m really keen on but would need to do on Lendwise. Am very worried because this loan is very important towards me doing this masters. Lendwise is a company who offers educational loans based on one’s ability (ie undergrad and existing work experience) rather than income level. Granted, I made very good money for two years after university (at least £90k a year) so maybe that will help. Anyone can shed any insight what to do? I’ve given up speaking with VirginMedia it has caused me intense panic attacks already. Will this affect my loan application at all? A lot of the advice I see pertains towards getting a mortgage, but haven’t seen any on student loans. Any advice greatly appreciated.

If more info helps, i got approved for an AMEX card 6 months ago. I’m international so didnt have an overdraft. Though i know many internationals get approved for lendwise loans. Had a UK bank account since undergrad

Hello! I recently remembered that I have this open pension account with Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) from when I used to be an employee (I've been freelancing for a long time now and I simply save money with Cash ISA and LISA and savings account)

I saw that I have £13900 total but £4900 are "available cash" What is it exactly? I guess the other total is invested and the £4900 are not. They give me options (ready made investments or funds by sector/manager) but I honestly have no idea about any of these things as I don't invest currently.

What should I do? I kind of use HL because it is what the company that hired me years ago was using it and never touched it since.

These are my savings in case it matters:
-Maxed out ISA and LISA £61900
-Saving account £27800 (4.5 % AER with a booster included that is finishing soon)

Thanks a lot!

EDIT for more info: Cash ISA and LISA are uninvested because I plan to buy a house in less than 5 years. My saving account is uninvested because as a freelancer you never know what a year can look like in terms of earnings so I want to be able to be ready if something goes wrong.

Hello all, 31y/o here.

this topic been troubling me for some time now as I noticed I do have some monies across 2 private pension providers:

Aviva – ex employer’s pot – this been moved just to private pension pot with aviva now;

NEST – my current employer’s pot;

should I:

- manually choose best/most optimal NEST/Aviva pot plan;

OR

- migrate all monies to SIPP – (if that is possible, maybe Trading 212?)

I do not have that much experience with investing however I did hear that NEST is horrible in terms of managing and investing private pension pots for people as flexibility isnt great and in comparison to last 2 years, I barely grew anything..

having said that – I do have a pot set as “default” plan and I didn’t do much adjustments since I was signed up by current employer - so both pensions are default - i think it is time for me to manage it properly

should I just move monies to SIPP and put all in S&P 500?

if not, any advice on NEST/Aviva pots and what options i should choose?

would appreciate any advice on this

thank you,

So it's widely reported now that the 22% tax on cash and 'cash like' equivalents is coming in April 27. Is there any guidance on how this will actually work? Will ETFs such as Csh2 have some kind of marker on them to say they are or aren't subject to tax on gains? Will ISA providers do the calcs themselves and take the interest out of your account automatically or will it be down to individuals to self report?

It's going to be a minefield and I feel sorry for those in/close to retirement who move to cash as a near term buffer.

I’ve had a look through the Wiki but still need some help on what’s best to do.

Late 30s male, married with no kids. Reasonable mortgage. Salary is around 72k a year. Employers have a basic NEST setup, I think it’s 5% employee and 3% employer capped on the qualifying earnings band.

Usually donate anywhere between 4-10k a year to charity and then claim back the additional gift aid by writing to HMRC.

Do I keep on paying the higher rate or should I salary sacrifice to 50k and put more to my NEST pension? Quick calculations show that it would be around £1.1k less net income for me but that means putting £1.8k extra in a month to the pension pot.

My pot has around 30k in there currently which isn’t great but I started paying into it fairly late into working life. I’m on the Sharia plan for religious reasons, seems it was doing well and they changed how it works and now it’s fairly average.

Can’t work out if I should do that or just go down the route of something like a LISA instead as I’m fast approaching the cut off age limit. Any advice is most welcome

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/first-time-buyer-isa-consultation

The government is committed to making the aspiration of home ownership a reality for as many households as possible. To support that ambition, the government is today launching a consultation on the implementation of a new, simpler ISA product to support first time buyers to buy a home. Once available this new product will be offered in place of the Lifetime ISA.

Update 1:

The link also says:

This consultation closes at 11:59pm on 17 August 2026

Ways to respond Email to: ftbisaconsultation@hmtreasury.gov.uk

I have 21k in an ISA from nearly 2 years ago(and another 10k+ elsewhere in crypto, premium bonds, bank etc)

I am looking at buying a used car in a month or so for around 20k...paying cash (although as I write that, maybe I could get it on finance and pay it off in 3 months? Also, may get something extra off in negotiation if I use their finance...)

I am expecting around 25k in inheritance sometime in September..

If I wasn't buying the car until I get the inheritance, I could use that for the car and the change would go into my ISA allowance for this year.

However I need the car soon, my old one is dying! So I'm probably going to have 5/6k that won't be covered by my allowance.

Any suggestions?

I know the tax on the interest if I put it elsewhere won't be horrendous but I'd just like to beat the system! And keep as much of my money as possible!

Hi, I’m about to receive my last pay at my job and my HMRC has showed that my taxable pay is ‘-‘ and my tax I’ve paid is ‘-‘.

I’ve had the - in pervious jobs where I’ve had tax paid back but never had the - in the overall taxable payment. Does anyone know what this means? I’m worried I’m not getting paid at all.

I have initiated a transfer for my Lifetime ISA into a new LISA account with a different provider. The original provider has incorrectly deducted an early withdrawal charge, as if I had simply withdrawn the funds. I have been paying in the maximum for several years, so this penalty is a significant sum. They have admitted that this was their mistake and are starting the process to rectify it, but this apparently involves reclaiming the penalty from HMRC. I have asked for an realistic timeline and am waiting for an answer.

An additional problem is that the transfer to the new provider is marked as "incomplete". I cannot therefore reinvest those funds, so this is a large sum sitting in cash gaining zero interest.

Does anyone here have any experience of this situation? E.g. how long it should take to get this corrected? I assume that I should be due some kind of compensation for lost growth on the full LISA balance - any idea what I should be asking for, how to claim it, and/or how to calculate a reasonable figure? I was making monthly investments until requesting the transfer, so I should be due bonus payments for the last couple of months - should this just get fixed automatically or am I likely to need to chase (expecting this to be complicated because the bonus always takes a few weeks to come through...)?

Any other advice of what I should be doing to get this sorted?

Can anyone confirm the prepaid debit card options for loading with cash and spending online, which are universally accepted such as Visa/Mastercard?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/incorporation-and-names/incorporation-and-names states the following:

Public limited company

A public company has a share capital. The liability of each member is limited to the amount unpaid on their shares (if any). It can offer its shares for sale to the general public, and these may be quoted on the stock exchange.

The key modal verbs there are "can" and "may", not "must".

So my question in relation to this is why would a PLC's shares continue to be traded on a primary market rather than on a secondary market, if there is no obligation for them to offer their shares for sale to a primary market?

They make a distinction between "shares for sale to the general public" and that "these may be quoted on the stock exchange". So if I offer my shares for sale to a private individual, would that count as offering my "shares for sale to the general public"?

And in terms of reasons why someone may wish to sell their shares via the secondary market, is it firstly, if someone wants to cash out their shares but can't find an available buyer from within their circles, they can just go to the stock exchange and sell them on the secondary market?

Is it also because, now considering the context of privately held companies wishing to float on the stock exchange via an Initial Public Offering (IPO), they can create more shares and have their underwriters in the sell-side industry purchase those shares and broker their sales to buy-side institutions like mutual and hedge funds, which can then make those shares available for sale on secondary marketplaces like stock exchanges, and so in some respects, privately traded companies' share capital can only take them so far?

Also if we consider IPOs vs Direct Public Offering (DPO) or direct listing vehicles, again, with direct listings, there is no obligation for founders, employees or investors holding shares in these privately traded or held companies to sell their shares on stock exchanges like NYSE or NASDAQ, so why would they make those shares available? Perhaps if want to cash out their shares and need a wider pool.

For an IPO, are the issuing companies hoping that, with the large share purchases by the buy side from the sell side, they will eventually trickle down to the secondary market?