This year, I have some pretty big financial goals and that requires me to have lots of different savings ‘pots' on the go. I am often asked where I save and invest my money, so I thought I would put them all together in a single blog post. As a disclaimer, I am not a regulated financial advisor, and none of the information in this blog post should be taken as advice tailored for your needs. What works for me and my financial needs might not work for you.
Experian – Credit Score
I use Experian for free to keep check of both mine and my husband's credit scores. You can sign up for Experian here.
Marcus – left over house savings
We used a Marcus account to save our house deposit in for a number of reasons.
At the time it was one of the highest paying interest accounts available with quick access to our money. Of course the recent pandemic has changed that!
Whilst we were in the process of buying our house we made some sacrifices along the way (like not purchasing 500 litres of heating oil for the chapel we lived in before we moved out), and because my rental property sale completed before the house purchase completed, we saved almost £10,000 in stamp duty.
Thank goodness!
Right now we are earning 1.20% interest on this amount, which I think could be better.
However, we can access the money easily and quickly, and with a few more house projects on our to do list, this suits our needs right now.
Nutmeg – stocks and shares ISA and Lifetime ISA
Having an ISA is a tax-efficient way to save money as you don't pay tax on the interest or income from a maximum contribution of £20,000 per year.
Combine it with something like a Lifetime ISA (where the Government top it up with 25% of your contributions a year), which you can use towards retirement or buying your first home and they are a no brainer.
I use Nutmeg for both my stocks and shares ISA and my Lifetime ISA (LISA).
With Nutmeg I regularly do a quiz to choose my risk level and make any adjustments I need. Right now I'm coasting along at a 6/10 risk, but in the past I have had it set to much, much lower.
Wealthify – general investment pot
Okay, I admit I didn't have a plan when I signed up for Wealthify, but I got £25 cashback for signing up and having £500 invested for 3 months.
I also got my husband to sign up.
We are making a small monthly contribution to our pots, but with no plans for them yet.
If you're interested, take a look at these Regulated Forex Brokers.
Barclays – day to day banking plus e-savings pots
I do my day to day banking with Barclays, more out of habit than anything else.
I have created some e-savings accounts within my online banking portal and renamed them.
This helps me to separate money I am putting aside for different things. Tony also has access to some of them because they are joint e-savings accounts.
Despite the name of the accounts (e-savings accounts) the interest here is laughable and not worth it. That isn't important to me though – I like seeing the money all separated into pots and knowing how much we have towards certain things.
You can also create savings pots with Monzo.
Orca – buying & selling stocks and shares
I have been using Orca to dabble in stocks and shares for awhile now.
Not only can stocks and shares go up and down in price, but you can also receive some passive Dividend income from them.
As you know, I am a big fan of passive income!
Orca also have a brilliant referral program.
If you sign up and deposit £1, within 3 days you will get a free share at random, worth anything up to £200!
You can then keep the share, or sell it and withdraw your money.
PensionBee – pension
Both my husband and I use PensionBee for our pensions.
Tony had some previous pensions that are now all transferred to PensionBee (they did it all for him), and I have started my pension with PensionBee as I didn't have any previous employee pension.
I also got £50 for referring Tony to PensionBee, and he got £50 too.
We are able to make personal contributions and employer contributions from our business.
I hope that learning where I save and invest has given you an insight into the many ways that I invest and save money.
These accounts work well for me and my financial goals.
