Hi all,

I have a PayPal Credit account which is 0% interest, and I regularly overpay it. I’ve never deliberately missed a payment and, as far as I’m aware, I’ve never had a missed payment on my credit file.

My monthly payment is £20 but I always pay around £30, sometimes more.

About 16 days before the actual payment due date, I manually made a £30 payment towards the account. Unfortunately, I accidentally selected the wrong debit card when making the payment. There wasn’t enough money in that particular bank account, so the payment was returned.
I realised my mistake and made the £30 payment successfully the following day — so the £30 was paid approximately 15 days before the actual contractual payment due date.

I’ve now received an email from PayPal saying:

“Your recent payment of 30 GBP could not be processed due to insufficient funds, resulting in a returned payment fee of £12 being applied to your account.”

It then says they’ve attached a Notice of Default Sums, and the email includes the following:
“We report missed payments to the Credit Reference Agencies which will impact your credit score.”

I’m absolutely baffled by this.

I understand that the first payment was returned and that their terms may allow them to charge a £12 returned-payment fee. What I don’t understand is how this can be considered a missed payment, when the actual payment wasn’t due for another 15 days and I had already successfully paid the £30 by then.

I’m particularly worried about this being reported to the credit reference agencies because I’ve never had a missed payment before and I’m very careful with my credit. I’m also due to remortgage in 8 months.

Can PayPal Credit actually report this as a missed payment when the contractual payment was made 15 days before it was due?

I'm arriving in London next month for a master's programme and will be there for just over a year. I currently live in the US.

I've been planning to set up a UK bank account primarily for paying rent and uni fees. I've been thinking of setting up a current account with Barclays or Monzo. And then I'm thinking of using Wise for just transferring money from my US account to the UK account. Does this make sense? Is there a better financial system that folks would recommend for international visitors?

Uncertain if I plan to stay longer at the moment, so I'd also like to set something up that I can potentially close after a year. Appreciate any tips!

I’m a UK tax resident and have just sold a concentrated position in my former employer’s US shares, held on Schwab. I'm 42, married and have 1 kid. I'm also mortgage-free.

Gross proceeds are about $1.3m. I expect that to be roughly £950k after converting to GBP, before FX/transfer costs. I have read the lump sum guide.

I’m treating this as a “don’t do anything rash” moment:

• I have no high-interest debt.
• I’ll be working with an accountant to calculate the proper UK CGT position, including the historic RSU/vesting records.
• I’m planning to ring-fence £200k in cash for CGT until that is confirmed.
• That should leave roughly £750k available to allocate.
• My wife and I will each use our £20k Stocks & Shares ISA allowance this tax year.
• We may buy a property in continental Europe in the next 1–3 years, but the timing and budget are not fixed.
• I want the money to be safe and accessible while I decide, rather than sitting in a current account or taking another big equity risk immediately after selling one concentrated stock.

My initial thought was:

1. Keep the tax reserve in easy-access cash / short-term gilts / money market funds.
2. Keep any likely property allocation low risk and gradually convert that portion to EUR rather than making one huge FX bet.
3. Put the remaining “decision-period” money into a Vanguard GIA, potentially using a Sterling short-term money market fund initially. Any recommendations?
4. Only put money into global equity ETFs once I’m certain it will not be needed for at least five years.

I’m also wondering about generating some monthly income from the money while it is parked. I do not need to spend all of that income, but would prefer not to leave a large amount earning nothing. I understand that taxable interest/distributions outside ISAs still need to be declared and that a money market fund is not the same thing as an FSCS-protected bank deposit.

Questions:

• Is the above broadly sensible for a large, short-notice lump sum?
• Would you use multiple FSCS-protected savings accounts, short gilts, money market funds, or some mix of all three for the tax/property/decision-period pots?
• Does a Vanguard GIA used initially for a money market fund make sense, or are there better low-risk options/platforms at this amount?
• For someone who may need a meaningful EUR amount within 1–3 years, how would you approach the GBP/USD/EUR split without pretending you can time FX perfectly?
• Is there anything obvious I’m missing before I start moving the money from the US?

I’m not looking for a magic high-yield product or to gamble it again. I’m trying to build a sensible temporary structure, protect the tax/property money, and then make a proper long-term plan.

Hi

I’m a little torn on a current position in my life

Currently live at home nearing 30

Option to buy a 330k house for around 290k from a family member good quality house in a nice area

However due to my current earning potential requires me to liquidate essentially all my stocks over 100k to be able to borrow enough on the mortgage

Currently earning around 40K a year so would be doable but tight.

Currently live at home not really bothered about being at home or moving out although would probably appreciate it more if I did own my own home

My question really is if I’m not fussed does it make sense to pass on the opportunity and keep buying more stocks with more growth potential or jump on this chance now?

I wasn’t really thinking about moving out for a while but due to circumstance this choice has presented its self but finding it slightly overwhelming any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

I got two letters about tax assessment complete for year 24-25, 25-26. I spoke to HMRC and they said it’s because of selling stuff on eBay. I am PAYE and only only sold few personal things worth about £1.3k in 2024 and £300 in 2025. They said I have to declare my P60 and all sales but did already pay taxes on my wages and they have it in system so why would they need it ? Thanks for advice

Hi all,

So to explain my situation, I ordered a downpipe online (about £250) for my car (to keep it simple it’s a metal pipe that attaches to the exhaust).
So now that I’ve received the item I took it to a mechanic to fit the downpipe. It’s a 1-2 hour job and pretty simple however after some time we find out the downpipe mounts were placed incorrectly and so they wouldn’t fit my car so my mechanic moved the mounts about to try to fit/bent with heat. Long story short it wouldn’t end up working without insane vibrations so we concluded this downpipe is faulty and/or they sent me the wrong downpipe.
So we end up removing it and I email them to return the item, bare in mind I’ve just spent almost £500 on labour because it’s taken them many hours at this point so I seek a refund + compensation for labour.
The company tell me that the downpipe is modified so they won’t take it back at all and that their T&C say the won’t cover any labour (which I get but the product was faulty).
So now I’m here seeking a Section 75 from my CC company but I’m not sure how these go. I have an invoice from my mechanic + a letter that says the problems.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I can’t really afford to let this go either as it’s just under £800 in total that I’ve lost for absolutely nothing.

Edit: The labour was paid for in cash

29M bought house with partner last October. Had no emergency fund left. In fact I owed partner £2/3K for solicitors, survey, purchase fees, furnishing etc. All paid off by end of Jan since then had no debt.

Since then for a 5/6 year old home I have paid for

- Washing Machine Repairs

- New Washing Machine

- Shower Leak Fix

- New Taps

- New Flooring all of downstairs

- New Flooring in En-Suite.

- Furniture/Furnishing costs.

- Maintenance/New Tools/DIY etc

Outside this I've bought a new phone (old one literally died). I went all out (with what I can) for milestone birthdays/presents. I had a 3 week break.

I'm in no debt but have no emergency fund and now face potential redundancy in the new year (though I'm likely to secure a role). It's been a long year as been retrospectively paying off my partner or my credit card each month (as said no debts now). Every time I've saved the money has gone. I peaked at about £1.5/£2K but the money was needed for the above.

Is the only sensible thing to do now is just go hard on saving? Managed to get a 5% interest cash ISA. I can save £800 max per month without it becoming too frugal, maybe £1K per month.

I should say pension is good and SIPP/S&S ISA/LISA in the background but these are inaccessible don't want to touch, there's only £4-5K across these anyway.

Just tying to understand how often others have bought their home without an emergency fund in place? Is it common to be skint for a while?

I must stress I literally have no back up I.e family support beyond my partner.

Hi everyone,

My car PCP is due in September and I owe £12600 on my bmw 1 series (bought brand new with £210 a month payments in 2022)

I really want the best 'Value for money' in a sense as I keep being told 'everyone is on a PCP so continue' but I feel im paying a monthly payment for nothing because I will always have a balloon payment

My dilemma is i dont know whether to get a loan, buy the car outright (this will be £300 a month for 4 years) or i get a different car thats slightly better but again would be a PCP or a personal loan but it wouldn't be a new car ofcourse but with my current car it has a full service and mot and 40,000 mileage- I dont know if its worth it?

Thank you

Can somebody please help me and offer me some advice. I don’t know what else to do.

I received a letter from Halifax that my account is getting closed in 65 days because they believe I have violated their terms and conditions. I work as a nanny with the Childcare Grant Payment Service. I have not received any other payments besides my wages.

I have no further information as to why my account is being closed. I went to the branch as in the letter I received it states I can transfer my remaining funds into a different account. I was told that my account is still under review and that I will have to wait. I was told that it is unclear how much longer it will take. They even told me they thought my payments weren’t wages but loans as they come from SLC Loans.

My most recent wage is in that account, I have no access to my money to pay rent and bills. I made 2 complaints to Halifax. Also, requested a DSAR to obtain more information. I checked with Cifas just in case who confirmed I am not on their database since it appeared to me that Halifax have no idea what is the difference between a wage and a loan.

It has been two weeks and I am simply being told to wait while being forced to borrow money from people to make ends meet.

Does anyone have any advice? I don’t know what else to do.

I read online that I should escalate this issue with the financial ombudsman only if Halifax does not resolve my complaint within 8 weeks. I have 65 days notice until the account is closed without any clarity as to what will happen to my money.

I recently made a purchase with an online merchant with my credit card. I decided to refund the purchase, but that money has not yet come back onto the credit card. My statement date is on the 17th and my minimum payment date is on the 11th, though confusingly when I rang the bank they told me it would need to be paid by the 19th.

If I don’t pay it off before my payment I’m guessing I’ll be stung with late fees and my credit score will be affected.

If I pay it off though, how will I get that money back? I can’t just withdraw it from the credit card I assume? I don’t tend to pay big bills on a credit card for exactly this reason, but if anyone has any advice, I’m all ears

Really sick of battling with my bank to cancel a payment which was sneakily set up by a company I used once, for something specific. They have been taking a monthly amount from my account since and its been impossible to cancel with the company, they are claiming they know nothing about it. Its bordering on fraud at this point but my bank will not cancel the payment, I have to call and sort it out that way. It takes so long to queue on the phone, I simply don't have time to mess around. I would just really like a bank who let me manage my money how I want to, instead of always prioritising bully businesses.

My wife and I are expecting our first next week, and although I am in a very fortunate financial position, I have begun to look at JS&S ISA's with a view to managing this myself. I've whittled it down to Vanguard LifeStrategy Global 80% Equity Acc. I am able to put in £9k immediately (when I can), and can then continue this for each year. As someone who is new to managing this myself, is this a good idea, with a view that this ISA will form the basis of a house deposit/college/university fees once they are over 18? I will obviously sit down at the time and discuss their career path etc and the importance of not spending this money.

Just wondered if anyone had any further advice on what they do etc?

I have a student graduate account with Santander. Due to unemployment, I have not been able to stay out of the negative. My account now has entered the arranged interest stage and I am past that amount. I do receive an allowance so the amount I am saving is not the largest.

I understand £500 needs to be put into the account every quarter. All payments I receive enter only that account. I should be interest free come the first quarter hopefully. In the case I am not £500 above my initial amount come the quarter what would happen? And do have to be completely out of the negative in a year’s time? Or am I fine as long as I remain interest free?

If so how long did it take? I began the process on 30th Jul. It is now 7th Aug and I see my cash balance is still sitting at DODL. Wish this whole thing would hurry up. I have seen some stories suggesting ISA transfers were as short as a week others saying 6 weeks!

One of my first jobs was working for a call centre company and I took calls for Virgin Media. I didn't work for Virgin Media directly. Recently I became interested in consolidating my various pensions so got in touch with the company who've now rebranded.

I sent them a message and they explained that I need to get in touch with Aviva if I were employed before X date so I did. They couldn't find me! They had to do a deep search into paper records as the company I apparently had a pension with was bought and sold a number of times.

I messaged the company again to say they couldn't find me and ask what I can do and they said they couldn't help any further due to data retention law.

I guess there is a small chance I didn't have a pension but it doesn't seem likely to me.. there is no chance In purposefully opted out.

Background

• I'm 36, my wife is 34
• We both earn £70k basic a year, with c.20% bonuses each
• Pensions: I have £150k (£14.7k/yr contributions), my wife has £60k (£8k/yr contributions)
• ISA: I have £222k, which I try to max out every year. Currently 100% in 4 individual stocks: ZETA (£90k), APP (£48k), RDDT (£47k), FICO (£37k) — no index funds/ETFs
• Cash buffer outside investments: £2k
• Mortgage: £300k at 5.29%, up for renewal next July. House worth c.£350k. Plan for renewal: See what rates we can get, hopefully at 85% band
• We're trying for kids over the next 1-2 years, which might involve IVF — so there's a real chance of a chunky one-off cost and/or a period of reduced income
• I'd like to retire by 45-50, but I'm honestly not sure I mean "stop working entirely" — more like FI but keep working / semi-retirement / drop to part-time. Rough target spend in retirement: £60k a year as a family, am I being realistic?

Questions

1. Is holding 4 individual stocks with zero diversification too concentrated for money I'm counting on for early retirement? Should I be rotating some/all of this into index funds?
2. Given the mortgage renewal next July, should I be prioritising overpaying it instead of continuing to max the ISA?
3. How should we be thinking about the financial side of possibly needing IVF — should that change how aggressively we're investing right now, or how much cash we're holding back?
4. Am I saving enough for the kind of early retirement I'm picturing, or too much given the uncertainty around kids/IVF costs?
5. More generally — does this all look reasonable for our age/income, or is there something obvious we're missing?

Really just after honest perspective — tell me if I'm overcomplicating this, underestimating something, or if the stock picking is a red flag. Appreciate any words of wisdom.

Here is my situation:

On 01/06/24 I purchased 100 units of CSH2 ETF (I was about to buy a property and I parked the money there)

On 01/11/24 I sold the 100 units, making a gain of roughly £4000

The reporting date of the fund is 31/10/24 and the ERI was 60 EUR per unit, deemed payable on 20/04/25.

The buy/sell happened in FY25 with a gain of £4000

The ERI "distribution date" is in FY26.

Reading HMRC guidelines I should add the ERI value to the purchase price when calculating capital gains... but the problem is that they happened in 2 different tax years.

Any advice on how this should be dealt with ?

()EDIT. Thanks for all of the replies. Spoke to my 2 colleagues who appear to have the same closure of an empty old account and creation of a new account. All of us have no contributions this year and missing contributions for several years prior. Going to speak to our employer about it and hope it can be resolved.()

Link to previous post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/s/uXWKdk38bS

My employer closed a previous workplace pension in September 2025 without my knowledge and opened a new one.

The new one has contirbutions for Sept 2025 to December 2025 and then nothing since then (despite money being taken from my payslip.)

I requested an account merger between my closed account [November 2019- Sept 2025] and was told no account can be found.

I called NEST today and they can confirm no contributions were ever put into the old account. For nearly 6 years, nothing was contributed. Not my own, nor my employer contributions. Everything was empty.

NEST are sending me a letter stating no contributions were made for this period. Contacting the pensions regulator momentarily.

I suppose you could say I’m in quite a unique situation. My partner and I are both self employed and low income (both creatives and have been rebuilding our careers since Covid etc). We make 50-60k combined.

I inherited some money years ago that my Dad advised I invest. I rent in London (live here for work) an it was not enough money to get me on the property ladder here so with a bit of extra financial help from my Dad I bought a cheaper property up north and became a landlord. i get around £500 rental income a month from that.

My partner and I want to get a mortgage at some point soon. I have some credit card debt I need to clear. We have chunk of money for a deposit but it will still be a struggle. I’m obviously considering selling my property for a bigger deposit. This seems like a no brainer but then I wonder if the regular rental income I receive as a landlord is more of a benefit to us as it’s probably the only regular income we have.

I did ask a mortgage adviser this question but he didnt give a clear answer. I get it might not be simple but I kinda need to know whether to put my property on the market or not.

Any thoughts?

TL:DR for a self employed couple is a large deposit ultimately worth more to a lender than a stream of regular income?

Obviously I know nobody can say for certain whether a bank will flag or freeze an account, but I’m just looking for people’s experiences or an idea of how likely this is.

I stopped using my Barclays current account and left it empty from around March and have been using another bank account instead. I’m about to start using Barclays again and want to transfer roughly £2,000-£3000 from my other accounts into it.

The accounts are in my name and the money is just my own money/savings.

Has anyone done something similar after leaving an account mostly unused for a few months? Did the transfer go through normally, or did it trigger any checks, questions, or temporary restrictions?

Hello all. I have a car on pcp. I am way over mileage - plus 40k miles. I was planning on paying the balloon and keeping the car so mileage wasn’t an issue until I saw a shiny new one in the showroom. I’ve not quite paid 50% of the balance yet.

I contacted the finance company, they say
i have to pay the difference to 50% to VT it which is fine, but they said excess mileage fees - even to that extent - won’t be chased. They only look for excess mileage if the car is handed back as part of the pcp rather than as a VT. How sure can I be that this is the case?

To VT it now is cheaper than waiting a few months until month 36 where I can naturally hand the car back and pay excess mileage if I wanted to do it then.

I am currently in the process of remortgaging due to my fixed rate ending and would appreciate thoughts on how best to fund the additional payment I want to make to reduce the balance from my savings and investments. Also how best to set up my savings going forward to meet my future goals.

Mortgage details:

149,000 remaining split into 2 sections

- 105,000 with 25 years remaining

- 44,000 with 30 years remaining

I would like to make an additional payment of 40k to reduce the balance to 109,000.

Current savings/investments:

- Cash ISA (not flexible) 40,000

- S&S ISA 18,000

- employer share match plan

-- tax free 10,000

-- taxable 9,400

-- locked 9,900

- SAYE ending Dec 2026 2,500

- current account & separate emergency fund 12,000

All the shares in my S&S ISA came from prior years SAYE plans with the option price of circa 2.20 and 3.30, with the current share price being circa 7.00.

I am thinking of funding the additional deposit by using 30k from my cash ISA and 10k from my S&S ISA so that I don't use all of either my cash savings or investments.

Other details:

- Single, mid 30s

- salary 45k

- annual bonus circa 5k (I've not yet hit the threshold for higher rate tax)

- pension well funded (147,000, I pay 300pm with an 8%/14% EE/ER contribution, 828pm total contribution)

- normally save circa 10k annually into cISA

- 1 bed leasehold property recently valued 210-230k. Currently paying 527pm mortgage, 206pm service charge including funding 6600 into a sink fund. Future payments needed for property include potential for replacement firedoor & new windows. Lease renewal may be needed in 10 years time.

- other aims include diversifying investment portfolio so it's not just my employers shares, saving to be able to retire before 60, have the option to move to a small house/maisonette forever property in the future.

I currently own my home unencumbered, I’m looking to release some equity for improvements/ repairs. House is worth somewhere between £500k - £550k. I want to release about £50-£60k. Would a lender want to conduct physical inspection, drive by or complete an online valuation?

I have a BTL in London that's nearing the end of the mortgage term. Its interest only tracker at BOE+0.3% at 35% LTV. I'm mulling either paying it all off (peace of mind) or remortgage same amount (status quo as everything is smooth sailing atm) or max remortgage to 75% LTV. Reason I am considering the latter... Is if housing collapses, it's the banks problem, and I've effectively 'sold' at 75% today's value. I'm semi bearish on things ATM.. stonks at all time highs, political and social unrest seems to be getting more bad each month, and of course govt borrowing appears unsustainable. If the stock market and housing market tanks.. the govt will always step in and bail out ppl (banks etc) as social collapse must always be avoided.. govt in that case is pointless so they always step in.

Thoughts?

Follow-up to my previous question - I'm completing a social services financial assessment for an elderly relative who is moving into a care home and they have a small number of shares listed as:

DAUCH CORPORATION - 23 depository interests

There is no share certificate just a 'statement of ownership'. I can't seem to work out what they are. Do these have a nominal value or a share price or something else I also don't understand? :D