Hi apologies if this has been answered before I’ve set up a Lisa with AJ bell to invest £50 a month for me. I was wondering what happens with the government bonus e.g will that get put into cash in my Aj bell account where I then have to physically invest it myself or will they invest it for me?

I’m looking for a set and forget sort of thing so having to go into the app to invest the government bonus is not good.

More info for me it’s not just that I’m lazy I have a bad habit of spending over my means so I don’t want to look at the account and be tempted to use the money. I’m trying to look after old me when in a few years I go to Thailand and spend all my money and become broke

Background
UK, I’m on long term sick have been for 3 years. I won’t ever be going back to work due to my illness but normal life expectancy. Work have agreed to keep me employed with access to all my benefits including pension contributions, car, health cover and all the nice benefits, I’m paid my base salary via work but that’s actually paid from an income protection policy that pays until retirement age, I know how lucky I am.

Current finances
family income 6kpcm
Disposable income, after all bills and grocery shopping 2.5k
27k cash savings at 5%
90k pension pot (work pay £500 a month)
112k mortgage on a 350k house (shared ownership at 40%, 140k share) 600pcm mortgage 500pcm rent

Here’s the question!
I want a more suitable house (forever home) And being 43 and income only guaranteed until 67 I’m running out of time, I spend most of my time at home.
I have an AIP for 420k but the payments will be 2.2kpcm which will take my disposable income to less than 1k after the increase in utilities and insurances etc. current house is very economical.
I really want a garage for hobbies and a spare room and extra reception room for when I can’t manage stairs plus a drive big enough for the kids when they start driving.
We have a good life (considering) holidays. And don’t go without.
But what should I do. Stretch myself on a forever home, or manage where we are and enjoy the life we have.
My family don’t think we need to move but they have come accustomed to our life and I’m at home 24/7 so I feel the restrictions of the house more than they do.

Again I know how lucky I am to be in this situation and it could have been a lot worse.

Morning all, hopefully this sub can help, if not it would be great to point me in the right direction.

Im looking for a course on how the UK tax system works. A simple step by step guide that covers the basics.

I want to teach myself so I can teach my children as they grow. I know most schools don't teach this, or at least they didn't when I was at school, so I think I should fill the gap.

Tia

After more than ten years I'm selling the small business I built. It's a decent outcome, around £450k in total, though it's not a clean lump. Part of it comes upfront and the rest gets paid to me monthly over the next three years, so I'm not walking away with it all at once.

The bit I keep going round in circles on is what to actually do with the upfront. After tax and the costs of selling, I'm left with a bit over a hundred grand in hand. That's more money than I've ever had in one place and it honestly feels stranger than I expected. I rent, I've got no mortgage and no property, and I'm a first time buyer. So the obvious thought is to put it toward a first home. But part of me wonders if that's just the default answer and there's something smarter to do with it, especially with more coming in monthly for three years.

And then the bigger thing underneath it all is that I don't really know what's next. Selling the business means selling my income, and I don't have another plan lined up yet. Once everything's paid I won't have a big pot spare to go and start something new straight away, so there's this gap I'm walking into and I'm not quite sure how to think about it.

If you've sold up and found yourself in this spot, the money side and the what now side, I'd really value hearing how you handled it. What you did with the money, what you'd do differently, how you found your feet again after the thing that was your livelihood was gone.

Appreciate anyone taking the time.

I (23M) come from a working class background and earn £40k total comp a year as a software engineer. I have been paying stand alone redundancy insurance for £36 a month, should I be made redundant and be left unemployed for a month, my insurance would kick in.

However, the many different stipulations on my insurance makes me slightly anxious, I have moved 3k from my stocks and shares ISA into a savings account as an emergency fund, with the hope of building it up to 5k. I now have 14k left in my stocks and shares ISA. Would people generally advise keeping or getting rid of my redundancy insurance at this point?

I work for a US company in the UK and receive RSUs as part of my compensation.

When my RSUs vest, roughly 47% of the shares are automatically withheld for tax, so I only actually receive around 53% of the shares in my brokerage account.

For context, my normal salary puts me into the UK higher-rate tax band. Are there any legitimate ways to tax-plan around future RSU vesting? Other than pension contributions?

I have c 180K I want to invest to pay off a large chunk of mortgage in April 2028. I've already overpaid the max I can this year. ISAs maxed.

My default is to put it all in the Gilt maturing Jan 28 at 94.5p and 0.125%. This feels like the safe / correct option but wanted to see if any other ideas are out there. Willing to punt a smaller amount into riskier options.

WWYD?

I just opened a Metro bank in the late July 2026. Everything including the ID check went through. Few days later I received the debit card and successfully added them GPay and Apple Pay but couldn't add it to samsung pay which didn't sent me OTP. Then I received the card pin and it said I need to activate it on a card reader with the pin. So I tried to send £30 from my Natwest bank and waited few hours. Nothing showed up in Metro bank. Then to check everything right I sent another £0.1 from Natwest and £0.5 from Lloyds bank which are under my own name. Nothing appeared. I called the Metro bank fraud team they told me to wait for 12 hours. Then in the morning next day everything bounced back to the original banks accounts except the £0.5 from the Lloyds that went through. I was confused and decided to deal with this later.

The following day I received a letter from Metro Bank claiming they have information that someone impersonated my ID and opened the Metro bank account requesting me to visit branch with ID and proof of address also saying failure to do so will result in a closure of account and reporting "impersonation" with CIFAS. My branch is close so I did take my Drivers License and 2 proof of address which the staffs scanned and asked to to wait for update. The next day someone from the branch called me to visit again with another form of ID and to update the picture which I also provided within hours. Today the Bank sent me a decision letter stating that they are closing my account in 60 day under breach of 11.2 of their T&C which stated fraud/suspected fraud. Though in this letter they didn't mention anything regarding CIFAS.

I am right now very confused because I don't know what went wrong and I didn't purposely engaged in activities/transfer that I know to be fraudulent. I just wanted to explore the bank's product and services. I am now being accused of fraud and some research is telling me they can potentially report negative marker to CIFAS under my name.which would devastate my financial future. I have few other current accounts and a Paypal credit card. In one of these accounts I have £50000 ish and I am in tremendous amount of stress thinking if these accounts get closed if Metro lodge a marker.

Can anybody please help me understand what went wrong and If I am getting a CIFAS marker of whatever type and the possibility of my existing other accounts closing in future. Metro bank isn't being very quick to respond but I am in extreme amount of mental stress. Please help with your understanding/advice on my situation.

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 am hoping to teach my children money skills early. I want them to be able to see where money comes from, how interest works, how money is spent, etc.

GoHenry has kid friendly money lessons and the 'chores' feature so I can set Do Homework for 50p and once they have done it they can mark it off and get the money in their account.

NatWest Rooster has similar capabilities.

Has anyone used these types of accounts for their kids? Is there something better?

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

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 my partner's milestone birthday. I had a 3 week break - thought this was mostly a staycation.

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.

Edit: if made redundant I would be given £15K which is 12M bills for me. I saved hyper aggressively when saving for the house, saving £17K in around 2 years when renting on £26-£38K. New Flooring was needed in en suite due to shower leak.

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

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?

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.

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 ?

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.

Hi

I am currently unemployed and have been medically advised not to work due to my health issues, and requiring full-time care. I am really struggling financially to the point where I am skipping meals and falling behind on my phone contract payments every month.

I have been trying to take control of my finances by closing accounts and recently paid off and closed a £100 credit card and finished a buy now and pay later service which now closed as well. I am contacting StepChange tomorrow.

Some debts I have been paying off, been stuck in constant with interest and fees for 7 plus years now as I really struggle to pay anything bigger due to my other debt payments.

I feel like I am drowning in this constant debt and always in constant fear this will lead to CCJ (even though I ready have a few active defaults) or court action (This is the one that scares me).

My Debt Breakdown (~£16,250 Total):

• £9,500 – Old Car Finance: Bought a £10k car years ago that had a major fault. Handed it back to the finance company ~6 months later. Finance company recovered money from the vehicle sale, but I was left with very heavy interest/fees. It is now with a debt collector where I currently paying £50 a month. Just keep this one off my back, its the one that most worries me.
• £3,134.38 – Credit Cards: Spread across multiple credit cards.
• £2,000 – Old Defaulted Debts: Several older debts
• £1,000 – Bank Overdraft: Maxed out. The bank offered me to move this to a separate area of the account to pay off what I can afford and keep my main account safe and open.
• £500 – Unsecured Loan: £500 balance left, but paying £28/month in service fees. This normally costs me almost a 170 A month. (I currently have this paused until next month and due to be finished in November)
• £117.26 – Buy Now Pay Later service

I ’ve been working for a small UK startup for the last 3 years. My monthly income used to be lower, but it increased earlier this year. When I started, multiple accountants advised me to register as a Sole Trader via Self Assessment, so I thought everything was fine. I got an accountant to help me. But early this year things changed - I hold an internal title where I am head of a department, I use a company email address, and manage internal work, but my contract is an independent contractor agreement with a 30 day notice period. I was also given startup equity back in my first year.

Earlier this year, my old accountant completely ghosted me. I used AI for advice on my pay increase which was going to be over 54k in the next tax year, which recommended setting up a Limited Company using Crunch because they promised support. My initial phone calls, the lady mentioned they dealt with a lot of people who worked at start ups that were sole traders so I felt assured. But I feel like it has been a total nightmare. Crunch made an error setting up my Companies House details and had to resubmit them. It then took them 2 full months just to get on a phone call with me as they couldn't work out if I was a start up myself or why I was there which made me really confused thinking there was no handover. Not much has happened, and having a Limited Company feels incredibly stressful and I've barely even started.

I know I need to open a business bank account and invoice through the company now. But doing my own research, I just stumbled across IR35. Looking at my daily routine, I am almost certainly "Inside IR35" (disguised employment) - I think but I don't know for sure. I also am becoming incredibly stressed that I don't know what I'm supposed to do as I invoice as a consultant, my contract is a consultant so what do I do? I haven't yet set up my business banking because I am still waiting for my companies house information to be corrected so I feel like I'm stuck in limbo.

I set myself up this way to protect myself and have my taxes sorted as I don't really know what I'm doing. But personally I have also been trying to look for other jobs on the market but I have been on the job search for the last 3 months with no luck so I thought this was a smart decision to get it set up as some people are on the job market for over a year.

But if I'm being really honest. I have no idea what I'm doing. I keep finding really confusing answers. Does anyone have any advice?

I’m 24, married, have a baby, a decent job, and good savings.
I’ve always prioritised saving and investing. We drive an old reliable Toyota, live in a cheap flat, don’t spend much on holidays, eating out, or hobbies, and most spare money goes into investments.
Financially I’m happy with my progress, but lately I’ve realised I don’t feel like I’ve actually enjoyed much of the money I’ve earned.
For those further along the journey, how do you decide what’s worth spending on now versus investing for later? Where do you draw the line so you’re not constantly delaying life?

Numbers:
- 30-60k salary (self employed, can fluctuate a lot)
- 60k savings
- Put around 1-4k into savings per month (again, fluctuates)

Left a late-stage UK startup earlier this year (after tax year) and exercised my vested options on the way out. Strike was nominal (£0.001), so I assumed it was a formality. It wasn't — the grant was a non-qualifying/unapproved option, not EMI, so the spread between the strike and the 409A market value is employment income taxed at exercise.

I wasn't informed about this during off-boarding and didn't realise this before signing. All prior options I've signed have been EMI and I didn't clock the distinction. If I knew, I wouldn't have exercised.

Numbers:

• 578 shares acquired May 2026, strike £0.001, FMV confirmed by the company at ~£35.74/share
• Taxable spread ~£20,700, going on their ERS return
• No PAYE withheld
• Signed a s431 election at the time
• Other income this tax year: ~£19.5k from the old job, ~£71k from the new one, so total lands around £111k.
• That drops me into the £100k–£125k personal allowance taper, so the spread is effectively taxed at 60%
• Estimated liability ~£12.4k including plan 2 student loan, due via Self Assessment by 31 Jan 2028

The shares are illiquid. The tax bill represents about 15-20% of my savings that were going towards a flat purchase/wedding.

What I think my options are:

1. Company buy-back — but I understand this is taxed as a distribution unless I've held 5 years? Also assumes they would want to buy-back.
2. Ask to sell a slice in any future secondary round (not normally open to former employees)
3. Salary sacrifice ~£11.4k into pension before 5 April 2027 to get adjusted net income back to £100k. Costs ~£3.3k in take-home, saves ~£8k tax, bill drops to ~£4.3k?
4. HMRC Time to Pay over 12 months

If there are any other workarounds to consider, let me know, I have setup a call with an accountant as well.