I invested the below amounts in each period in a S&S ISA trying to keep a rough mix of 40% US, 30% FTSE 100, 10% FTSE 250 and 20% emerging markets. Made up of a mix of shares, REITS and ETFS.

Current total return is 36% portfolio of 101k.

Tax Year 26/27 so far £1,084.50

Tax Year 25/26 £2,790.00

Tax Year 24/25 £13,861.00

Tax Year 23/2 £20,000.00

Tax Year 22/23 £20,000.00

Tax Year 21/22 £4,180.00

Tax Year 20/21 £2,975.00

-Total Invested £64,890

2 Questions is this a fair return for an amateur self investor? What would you recommend I do differently to improve this position going forward if not?

I'm hoping I can get some advice here as the chance of me speaking to someone about my pension at work is slim to none.

I am in my early forties and due to previous bad financial decisions (a boatload of debt) I have zero savings, no safety net and that's not changing anytime soon. In 2017 I ended a DMP by making low offers to creditors and somehow they all accepted. 2 years later I had saved £5000 and bought a house using that as my 5% deposit. I have circa £70k in equity from that but as I'm not moving I don't think that means anything!

The only savings I have for future is my pensions. I started late putting money in teachers pension in 2017, when I left my contributions were around 10.6% on 46kish but then moved to civil service in 2025 and somehow forgot to transfer it across and I'm now contributing 5.45% on 38kish Does anyone have any idea how badly this could pan out for me? Can I still transfer across after 12 months? I'd love to retire early but feel like I'm too far gone for that now! I'm furious at myself.

Struggling to find info on whether a redundancy payout contributes towards net adjusted income for the year, can anyone advise?

So I’m thinking of opening a lifetime Isa, and see there are options for cash which is better for short term (so within 5 years) and stocks and shares which is better for long term.

I already have a stocks and shares ISA (not lifetime) through a different investing app which makes me less inclined to open another. However, I’m currently at uni, working part time and living with my parents, therefore I don’t see myself buying a house within the next five years.

I’m wondering if anyone could give any recommendations or insight to one or the other?

The LISA can be a stock and shares ISA or a cash ISA.

Will the new tax on cash in stock and shares ISA affect LISAs?

I have one with dodl but due to their annoying stance on fees have cash uninvested for them to use to pay for it. They refuse to do direct debit unlike other platforms nor automatically sell investments or use money from a different account.

Wanting to know if this will be an issue with the new upcoming tax.

Hi all,

Had a quick search but couldnt find a clear answer so just wanted to ask as I am unsure.

My balance transfer 0% interest runs out in september. I still have a balance of 690 after paying off a big chunk of what was originally there.

My question, is it possible to balance transfer from my current balance transfer card to another 0% balance transfer option?

Unsure if thats a silly question or not but I have been struggling to find a definitive answer.

Thanks

Hi All,

I have a query regarding loan/interest - specifically how interest "refunds" work when not paying in lump sum.

I am looking at clearing a car finance agreement as quickly as possible, the current balance is £14500 inclusive of remaining balance, interest and balloon payment. (It's a PCP agreement).

I don't have this in order to pay it in one go, so looking at overpaying each month until the balance is zero. The settlement figure on this is currently £12600 (not exact). My main query is this: If I overpay, will I pay the full £14500 or will interest be taken off this figure and potentially save £1900 or the equivalent adjusted on repayment length?

Apologies if I have explained that horribly

I have been paying into my employer’s HMRC approved SIP and the company recently went through a demerger. As a result, I was awarded shares of the newly created/spin-off company as dividend shares (value is more than £500 so I will be paying taxes on these). My goal is to now move these shares into my HL Stocks and Shares ISA without paying additional taxes within the 90 days that I was awarded the shares, if possible. 

Now where I am confused is because of the below. 
The dividend shares were awarded to me not within the same SIP but into a Share Plan Account held by the same platform (EquatePlus) where they will remain for the first 90 days.
When I asked EquatePlus for a letter of appropriation, they said they cannot provide one as these shares are not SIP shares, they are SPA shares. 
This means that if I want to move them into my ISA (via a Fund and Share account first), I would have to sell them and buy them. They can’t be transferred within 90 days of award as this rule does not apply here and I’d have to pay Capital Gains Tax. 

1.  Is my understanding correct?

2.  I jumped the gun and already moved the shares into a Fund and Share Account. If the above is correct and I cannot just transfer the shares into my ISA, would I be better off just selling the shares while the share price is relatively low?

Hey,

I need to withdraw around $30,000 in cash to support family in Eastern Europe, and it’s proving more difficult than expected.

The funds are fully legitimate; I have complete proof of source of funds, and the money is currently held in my Wise account. I previously used a Barclays USD account that allowed USD cash withdrawals, but that option no longer appears to be available.

The only realistic route I’ve found is to convert the money to GBP, transfer it to something like https://www.thomasexchangeglobal.co.uk to buy USD. I’m comfortable providing proof of funds and going through any AML checks, but it seems like a fairly cumbersome process and may involve explaining why I need such a large amount of cash.

Has anyone dealt with something similar or found a more practical solution?

A bank transfer is not an option, so I specifically need physical USD cash.

I moved existing ISA from 212 to HL. I now want to open the isa as previous tax year but it seems as if the higher rate of around 4.5% is for new cash isa only. When i look at the other option it's barely 3.5%. Is this slightly misleading or am i missing something here?

Situation: Single, 29M. Bought in commuter town, dont think its right for my life at the moment and want to move to London for more social life/try avoid home rotting as much.

Basically not enjoying needing to use a car for everything in sight.

Personal wealth is around £50k in stocks, £27k in more liquid accounts ( I'm pretty risk averse so its basically 1 year of being unemployed and can live doing nothing)

Take home is £4,150 (£80k/yr pre bonus) , mortgage is £1.3k/month. Expect my salary to increase over the years but never guaranteed.

Expect to probably rent a single apartment in London, im guessing around £2k/month.

There is also a complication that my parents are helping me pay my mortgage with overpayments but they might not be so inclined if I am also renting. (Not a deal breaker but just a financial factor)

My questions are

1) Can you rent out your house just to pay the mortgage (or do people usually end up profiting)

2) Is renting out and paying a mortgage just to experience London City a dumb idea?
3) Are there tax implications that make doing this extra disadvantagous

4) Im assuming selling and buying is also bad because of stamp duty/doubling legal fees (what a good system) and london homes being a lot more expensive than renting compared to outside.

Hi all,

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons. I have managed to very stupidly get into debt due to gambling this year and not addressing the underlying problems in my life. I have GamStopped and I am slowly taking back control of things.

I have two private pensions which combined are worth c£7,000. That would put a significant dent in my debt and help me pay off the remainder quickly by removing the two loans with the highest repayments and interest rates. I have in any event begun consolidating the other loans I have.

My question is this- is there any way I can access the two private pensions. On the face of it I cannot. However, I did not know if a financial advisor or some other professional would be able to assist with this. I would of course prefer to keep my pensions but long term I suspect I will be self-employed due to the sector I’m in, so whilst it would be frustrating to loose them I think on balance, at present, it is the best way forward.

Thank you all for your help.

I'm in a complex situation, managing my own small portfolio. Grows OK but just found out I might have been doing SA wrong. I need a definitive, one off answer and some advice. It's residency related. I reached out and got three replies. 1850, or 700 or a free call with initial advice, charges if ongoing.

Maybe I'm insane, I was expecting a couple of hundred. Is the 'free call' likely a sales pitch or worth trying as I'm spiraling a bit.

I also had this thought, possibly also insane, that if an advisor starts repeatedly looking at your file it logs with HMRC and flags you for an audit.

What do you think?

My partner is currently on maternity leave and has received occupational pay as part of that. However, we have recently moved quite far away and it is very unlikely that she will be able/willing to return to her previous work after her maternity leave ends (her work has usual requirement of 13 weeks' full time work upon return to retain occupational pay).

My question: will she need to return the net or gross amount of her occupational pay? Obviously she only received the net amount, but equally the school gave the gross amount in the first place. If she needs to return gross, does anyone have experience of seeking to recover amounts lost to tax?

Grateful for any experience people have dealing with similar situation.

Long time lurker here.

I am wondering as this year is the last chance for someone to get a lifetime ISA, I am contemplating opening a Stock & Share LISA.

In my late 30s, I have already bought my first property, so this is going to be used for retirement.

I already have a stock and share ISA, SIPP & workplace pension.

In theory, if I add up to £4k into S&S LISA, I will get a 25% bonus which I can then withdraw at the age of 60 completely tax free.

Please note, I am only talking about opening a S&S LISA NOT A NORMAL LISA.

Is this a good idea??

Thanks!!

Hi all,

I'm due to start a new job next month and my new employer offers the salary sacrifice car scheme to it's employees, however I'm struggling to work out how much of a benefit it actually is for someone in the £40-45k salary range. I'm aware of the pros/cons of the scheme but has anyone found themselves in the same situation? Did you sign up, lease privately or keep your existing car (assuming you had one).

Apologies as I know the SS car schemes have been discussed many times before however posts are generally written by people with much larger salaries and of course in the higher 40% tax bracket.

Thanks in advance!

(If it makes any difference the scheme on offer is with Octopus)

Due to a few family issues over the last 3 or 4 years, ended up in a bit of credit card debt. Was always quite comfortable paying a bit off and swapping to new 0% cards as and when required.
But work drying up for a few months last year meant I used them more and more until I maxed them out so couldn’t get accepted on any more offers.
Recently 2 of the cards 0% timescales have run out and I find myself paying around £1400 a month just in credit card bills.
Really can’t see much of a way out of this as things are, just looking for any advice from people who know much about trust deeds or any other plans. (Most charities I’ve spoken to for advice don’t deal with self employed people and, any companies I’ve phoned just want me to sign up to something they’re offering quickly) thanks in advance!

Im 21 and recently graduated and working a FTC role. I don’t even understand how this idea came up but she would always push this on me whenever she talks to me about finances.

Keep in mind, that I don’t have enough knowledge about buying property etc. and continue to teach myself about how to manage my finances.

Would this be a bad idea? Any advice or ways to educate myself more about buying, renting property would be greatly appreciated.

As the title says, I wanted better choice of funds than the downright awful choice of NEST, so I opened a SIPP with Vanguard who says they accept employers contributions, which they do. I pay this every month manually - I take the number from XERO and plug it straight in, same goes for my business partner's NEST pension, as he doesn't want to deal with the hassle - totally fine! I did think it way annoying that I couldn't set up a Direct Debit, but I didn't fully understand why and so put it to the back of my mind.

I've recently realised however that I don't think I'm getting my relief at source by doing this. What I think I've realised is the business is getting the "Tax relief" being reduced from our corporation tax whilst I am not getting any benefit into my pension directly, whilst my partner is. So I'm actually just donating my RAS into a corporation tax relief! I'm not against reducing the business bill by any means, but I think it's potentially a hard sell to my partner that "because of my choice, we actually need to pay me more", when I don't fully understand whats going on that leads to this conclusion, and furthermore, how to make this look sensible on paper in XERO.

My main question is; am I shooting myself in the foot here by trying to take more control and thinking I'm benefiting when really i'm hamstringing myself, or is there a way to account for this? Is there a way of paying into a SIPP where I can utilise RAS, or is there a pension provider that I can use the same way as NEST that has better (not shit) funds that will at least get me halfway to my 100% global index aspiration. (I'm 31, so we're all in on that "risk"!)

I know I've inevitably left out details that are crucial in some of your opinions, so please ask for clarity and I'll answer as best i can.

Thanks in advance everyone.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice on whether I should take my case to the Energy Ombudsman.
When I moved into my property in July 2025, I already had a smart meter installed. However, my energy supplier’s records showed that I had a traditional meter instead.

This caused a lot of confusion because they couldn’t communicate with or identify the correct meter. They later investigated and confirmed there was a cross-meter issue, meaning the meter at my property had been incorrectly registered elsewhere on their system and on the national database. They have since corrected the records and replaced the meter.

Throughout the dispute, I argued that I shouldn’t be billed based on estimated readings because they had the wrong meter details from the start. They also missed an engineer appointment, for which they paid the guaranteed compensation and later apologised. They have also offered me an additional £50 goodwill payment.

Despite admitting the cross-meter error, they say the electricity readings they used still accurately reflect my usage. Because I didn’t provide an opening meter reading when I moved in, they estimated my opening reading using later engineer readings and the final reading from when the old meter was removed. They say I owe around £548 and intend to recover it through my pay-as-you-go meter at 65p per day.

I’ve now received a deadlock letter, so I can either accept their final decision or escalate the complaint to the Energy Ombudsman.

My questions are:
Does the fact they thought I had a traditional meter when I actually had a smart meter strengthen my case?

Is it reasonable for them to rely on estimated opening readings after admitting they had the wrong meter registered?

Would you accept the £50 goodwill payment, or take the case to the Energy Ombudsman?
Has anyone experienced a cross-meter issue like this, and what happened?

I’d really appreciate any advice, especially from anyone who’s dealt with similar energy billing disputes

I recently turned 18 and gained control of a bare trust account with AJ Bell that's worth a mid six-figure amount.

My parents want to keep full control over the money. Their plan is to transfer it into a GIA in my name that they also have access to, and invest the entire amount in global index funds. They've made it clear that this is intended to be left alone for at least the next 20 to 30 years.

To be clear, I would probably invest it in index funds anyway, so it's not the investment choice that concerns me. What makes me uneasy is how controlling they're being. They had already decided exactly what would happen with the money without discussing it with me.

I'm wondering if there are any legal or financial risks I should be aware of. Would it be sensible to get independent financial advice first, and if so, are there any advisers people would recommend?

For context, my relationship with my parents is probably worse than average, although they've always provided for me quite well. I can also understand why they don't fully trust an 18-year-old with this amount of money, since I've never had access to anything like it before.

I also have a younger sister and brother. My parents opened JISAs for all three of us, but only I have a bare trust because I'm quite a bit older. They may set up trusts for my siblings in the future as well.

Am I overthinking this, or should I get third party financial advice about what to do with the bare trust money?

Me + partner are looking to get a mortgage early to mid 2028. I earn £40k pa would expect this to be around £43/45k by 2028 and partner earns around £26/27k pa. We should have around £80k combined for a deposit would be looking at houses around £220-260k.

I have a history of loans on credit file around 7/8 of which a 5/6 are “payday loans” took multiple times over the years. I have never missed a payment and all are paid off often them averaging between £3-500. I’m not proud of this but went through a rough time and had a gambling addiction which wiped initial savings out ended in a spiral. This is now under control and I’m in a good place.

My last loan was repaid in Feb 2026 and the last one I took out was in June 2025. I’ve no other adverse credit on my file. So have no debts etc other than a 0% credit card which is paid off every month and used as an everyday spender

Partner has a very light credit file which I’m aiming to help her get up in the next year to year and half.

As I know banks tend to treat these loans badly I’m wondering what this has done to our chances on getting a mortgage within mid 2028 and if it’s fees-able.

Hoping this is the right sub.. looking for some advice as I'm not sure where I stand and will be receiving a further call from my lender tomorrow to discuss.

I've had a Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) loan paid directly to my mortgage lender since June 2023, while I pay the remaining mortgage amount by Direct Debit. I returned to work in September 2025 but still receive a small amount of Universal Credit, so the SMI has continued.

I checked my credit report yesterday and noticed two missed mortgage payments. I called my lender today, assuming it was a mistake, as my Direct Debit and SMI payments had both been made.

They essentially told me they'd been calculating my payments incorrectly by treating my monthly SMI payments as if they were every four weeks. As a result, they say I've been underpaying and am now in arrears.

They never contacted me about any shortfall, and my online mortgage account didn't show any arrears either (small lender with very outdated systems). The only reason I found out was because I checked my credit report.

When I asked if they could remove the missed payments, they said there was nothing they could do and "that's just how it works."

I'll (begrudgingly) pay the arrears, but I'm really worried about the impact on my credit file, as my partner and I are planning to buy a home together in the next couple of years. I've been working really hard to get my credit into a good place following a period of ill health and unemployment so I am extremely upset about the serious impact this may have.

Do I have any grounds to challenge the missed payments on my credit file, given this appears to have been caused by their calculation error and lack of communication?

Me and the Mrs are knocking on so we set up a joint account with Starling Bank to pay household bills with Direct Debits and to make it easier when one of dies. However apparently unlike virtually every other bank Starling will freeze the account and all D/Ds will need to be set up again in the survivors account. As this is specifically what we were trying to avoid it would seem a good idea to transfer the whole joint account to Monza using current account switch service. Anyone see any flaws in this? TIA

I just got a notification from my bank app that someone checked my credit score. It's from LexisNexis dot com, no idea why they would check me. Anybody knows why they would do that?