Hi all, I've been living and working overseas since the early 2000s in 10 different countries - all paid in the local currencies to local banks. It's all been completely above the board work (in education), but proving every pound I've saved would be nigh on impossible as you rarely receive payslips in this industry in many countries. Also, I often work for small, private businesses and sometimes when I use a previous one as a reference I find they've closed down.

Last year in the UK I applied to pay extra NIC as I only have about 12 years' worth, but haven't received any acknowledgement of my application (or it was lost as I used my parents' address and they haven't said they received it). I'm not sure which class I should apply for but gave it a shot anyway.

I'm considering returning to the UK to be local to aged parents who aren't doing well health wise. I have enough in savings in my UK accounts to buy a small house or flat near them, and am drawn towards retraining as a driver for a bus service and/or heavy goods vehicle.

So I'm looking for advice three-fold; returning to the UK and buying a home with long-term UK savings and investing accounts but short-term payslips (about 9 months' worth) in a foreign currency, retraining as a bus/hgv driver, and paying extra stamp.

Many thanks for reading my post on a throwaway account.

After I dropped out of sixth form college I immediately got a job, the last year and a half I've been able to save around 23000 pounds. The last 3 months have been the first time I've had the freedom to use my money and thus I feel I got a bit carried away.

Roughly a 500 pound a month spend, mostly on eating out, travel expenses, activities / hobbies ect.

Currently inbetween jobs, so I'm wondering for no income and how much I have saved am I eating into it way too much or am I chilling?

Need help to chose what would be the smartest 4 things to invest in and im looking for different opinions. I have abit of money that im going to split over 4 things over the course of 1-2 years.

Hi all. I want to get my first proper credit card (I have Monzo Flex, but people say it isn’t one). Experian says my credit score is mid 900s, but that most likely isn’t accurate. I’ll be paying it off always on time, I just want to build my score and gain some exposure with a real credit card. Does anyone have a good one I most likely will be approved with? I’m 21 and earn £25k a year. I travel a lot so having bonus points/any perks for travelling would be great 🙏 (Have tried gold amex but unfortunately rejected)

thanks

After leaving the UK I was issued a reasonably large tax refund from HMRC, which was to be a cheque mailed to my overseas address. I contacted HMRC immediately to inform them that the major banks in my country do not accept foreign cheques, but that I still have a UK bank account. I was told to write a letter requesting a bank transfer. They specifically said I needed to sign and send from overseas, rather than asking a friend to print and send an electronically signed copy from the UK. Before I had the chance to do this, the cheque arrived. I’m worried now that I have the cheque, this will complicate the transfer. Should I send the cheque back with the letter? Or is it more secure to hold onto it?

Anyone can give insight if I'm (34F) actually waste my money too much? I'm currently earning £3.6k per month. I moved to London 2 years ago and promised myself I'd enjoy it for couple years and then start thinking about financial seriously.. and I guess this year is the time.

My current expenses I'm paying per month

• Rent: £1100
• Eating out / groceries / alcohol / coffee: £700
• mobile phone / internet: £50
• water: £45 (i live alone, but no meter yet installed and can't reach Thames to reduce it)
• electricity, gas: £75
• council tax: £110 (already with single occupier discount)
• transport: £150
• subscription (spotify, youtube, linkedin, netflix, prime, others..): £50
• other 'want': £300 (clothes, skin care, nails, holiday pot, gift, house improvement, etc)
• remaining £1k, put in saving account.

I was quite lucky with the 1-bed flat that I have rented for the past 2 years with £1100 pm but the LL recently notify that he'll increase it to £1400 (Zone 3). I recently changed job, and the commute to the new office (New Malden) is taking 1hr-ish by bus, so I was thinking to use this opportunity to move closer to the office. I was looking at rightmove, spare-room, zoopla, and seems like any 1bed-flat nowadays is actually indeed cost £1.5k per month without the bill so I really need to up the budget of the accommodation but I wonder if I'm actually splurging my life and with salary £3.6k pm I'm actually supposed on house share basis??

I have build myself 6-month emergency fund and sacrifice 3% of my salary (company match 7%).

My smart meter stopped giving reading and the screen was blank, had an engineer no show, eventually 2y + we got a new meter and finally our bills are no longer estimated. About a month after the new meter our account has £1500+ in credit so I emailed them and asked to confirm the balance was correct and they told us there was an write off investigation for the period of 2022.07.17 to 2023.04.03 because it was more than a year between actual reads. So they refunded us £1300 a month ago. Now they are saying it was wrong information and should not have had the refund. Unfortunately we caved and accepted a £150 good will payment and have to phone there debt collection people on Monday after I spending most of the day chatting online or over the phone with ovo today. Do you have any advice please

My husband and I are in a funny place with our financials at the moment. I was made redundant 3 weeks after returning from maternity leave. I found a new, much better paying job fairly quickly and started a little over 5 weeks after my notice period ended. On paper currently, we make a good household income. I now make £50k and my husband has been making £57k for the last year.

The crux of the problem: Our car broke down for the first time right before Christmas. I was still on mat leave so we repaired the car best we could afford, making it road safe with the understanding it could break down again at any time. We were hoping it would hold on until October/November when we'd have enough of a good sized deposit saved up.
No dice. The car broke down again yesterday and we suspect it likely needs an entire clutch replacement. We're bringing it to a mechanic on Monday so don't know the damage yet. Considering the car is worth £3k if in good shape, the repair could very well come out to more than the value of the car.

Thing is, we very likely can't afford the repair right now. It also doesn't make sense to spend more money to repair a shit car that we've already paid more than half of its value already. If Google is correct, we could be facing a £2500 cost. What's more is that we can't even pay cash for another old and shitty car as our savings are completely depleted. And the icing on the cake is that I don't get my first payslip until the end of May.

We need a car to get around with two kids (1 year and 4 years old) and to commute to work. We bought our current car with cash. It was already quite old but inexpensive and we didn't have much choice otherwise. We now desperately want a newish, reliable car, and one that is preferably electric or hybrid to keep running costs low. Our budget is £15-£18k.

I am not eligible for a loan due to mat leave, losing my job, and being on probation at my new job. My husband, however, can take out a loan through his bank for 6.5% APR. It's looking like our only option but I wanted to get some advice from more finance-savvy people first. What should we do? Should we take out a small loan to repair our junk car to hopefully hold us out for 5-6 months until we have a fairly solid deposit saved up? Or should we take out the larger loan to get a more reliable car?

My wife would like to know if she can take the pension pot that she has accrued with her employer into a private plan?

Does she have to stay with the pension provider her company chooses?

Can she take the pension sum that is already there and transfer from L&G for example into Scottish widows for example and continue her companies plan?

NB I’ve had a drink and she spoke at me quickly. Cheers Redditor’s!

I have been fined £100 by HMRC for not filing my 2022-2023 self assessment. I stopped being self employed (small side hustle on top of my day job) just before the 2022 tax year began. I didn't earn any income outside my day job that I would need to declare. One fault I must admit, before receiving the fine I didn't complete the form on the HMRC website that states I am no longer self employed. I have since done this.

Firstly I tried to get in contact with HMRC by calling them, only to be greeted by an automated message directly me to all the ways I can make an enquiry online, it was not possible to speak to someone. I submitted an appeal to the fine on the HMRC website for which they said it would take 3 months for them to get back to me. However it states that if I don't pay the fine after 3 months I will have to pay a penalty of £10 per day for a max of 30days. Basically I don't want to pay this fine because I know I don't need to submit a self assessment return and don't need to pay any additional tax, do I just submit a return and state £0 or does anyone have any advice on how I can get in touch with a human at HMRC. Your advice is appreciated.

Hi guys, I have 10 000 usd from my parents in cash in USD, anyone can help here to exchange USD to Pounds or directly to crypto? USDT, ETH, BTC does not matter

Hi everyone.

To make it easier to follow, I only have ONE debit card (debit A) stored on my Apple Pay. I have another debit card (debit B) from another bank but it's not on Apple Pay.

Today I went shopping at a local Chinese grocery store but when I was trying to pay with Apple Pay, it very, very oddly declined my payments. I tried a few times but all payment was declined. I have the physical card of debit A with me but I stupidly didn't try to tap it when Apple Pay was declined. Instead I tapped the physical card of debit B and it immediately went through.

I find it very odd but I have shopped at this exact store a few times before and every time I successfully paid with debit A on Apple Pay. Same card, same device. Therefore, I do not understand why it was declined this time. I have used debit A on Apple Pay for almost everything for a long time, and nothing has ever been declined. I checked the account balance but there was enough money. I then went to Sainsbury's minutes later and tried to pay with Apple Pay, and it successfully went through. This makes it even more weird and suspicious.

Does anyone know what might have happened? I am worried about security issue. Did Apple Pay decline my payment because that card machine was not safe or had security issue? Should I worry about the security of my debit B card because of the fact that I used it for payment this time.

Sorry if this is not the right place to ask, but this is the largest 'finance' UK subreddit and I don't see any more appropriate subs. Thank you in advance!

Hi all. I will be applying for a mortgage soon and am saving up some money for it. Fro the application I want to show I have some savings. Would the bank consider a Stocks and Shares ISA too much of a risk and not count it as an asset as much as they may do with a cash isa?

To give you some insight into my current situation, I bring home 1,400 a month and make 25,000 annual.

My boyfriend makes 2,500 a month and brings home 40,000 annual.

All of our bills and necessities come up to around 1,200 a month.

I pay £500 towards bills at the moment. My boyfriend pays £800.

I have a personal savings where I put away £100 a month and we are currently in debt of 9k which is paid at 1k a month by my boyfriend.

He always insisted I let him handle the debt but as we’re a couple I see it as our debt.

Can I please get advice on what we should be paying towards bills/debt between two of us and how much should go into savings?

UPDATE: TOTAL BILLS ARE 1,700 as food was not originally included in this.

UPDATE: we get paid every 4 WEEKS but pay the bills monthly. Sorry for the confusion

Hey everyone. So I’ve got £24,000 left on my mortgage to pay. What way would you suggest for me to pay it off quicker as I’m paying £124.30 a month towards paying it off. But it feels like a ball ache. Should I save up? And how much to save up each month?

Would love to hear your suggestions

Hello all,

I am a self-employed private tutor and I bought an electric bike which I use solely to travel to and from jobs. I'm in the process of sorting out my taxes and I'm wondering what the best option is to claim the bike back as an expense.

I have looked online but there is SO much information out there and it's overwhelming me. I know that being a sole trader means that you can claim back a portion of the cost of the bike, if so, what portion? I also know that you can claim back 20p per mile that is cycled.

I have also read that if I create a private limited company that I can claim back the entire cost of the bike. Is this true? This seems like the most cost-efficient way to do things, but I have no idea where to start.

Any information/ advice would be much appreciated. Thank you!

Hello Reddit,

I moved to the UK around half a year ago and got a HSBC rewards credit card with 5k limit via my company. But the card didn’t have good reward system so I applied got an Amex gold today with 1.5k limit.

Now my average spending is 800£ a month. And I’m not sure if Amex gold yearly fee is worth it after a year.

How does the credit card system work in UK? Should I cancel my HSBC card? Or is the card with higher limit better for building a credit score? Is 2 cards worse than one? Is not using a card bad for your credit score?

And after a year which card should I get? (Best rewards)

I’ve been sending him some money here and there but I’ve sent a lot last week but they’ve put his account on hold? They said they want proof where the funds have come from but it’s come from me, how do you put that in an email with proof?

He has a nationwide account

Hi all,

Looking to open a vanguard S&S ISA and invest £10k into an index fund as a long-term investment. I have 2 questions.

Q1

Is there much of a difference between S&P 500 vs FTSE global all cap index funds. I have one friend who has invested in S&P and seen a 48% rate of return, and another who has invested in global all cap and seen a 22% rate of return. Both opened their accounts at the same time 2 years ago and have similar amounts invested.

I’m aware of fluctuation but it does seem to me that S&P 500 has been outperforming FTSE global all cap in recent years. Which would you invest in if you were me?

Q2

Is it better to monitor the NAV value and bulk buy 10k worth of shares when the share price dips, or spend the 10k all in one go now, or should I set up a direct debit of let’s say 1k a month?

Your help is much appreciated.

Ok, just found this Raisin Bank marketplace from another post on this sub, and even though I've checked the FCA website about this they say they cover deposits up to £85k.

However, after I've signed up with them and going to deposit money in my account, say advise it's a minimum of 1K.

Even though I've checked to see if this is legit, I still have little nagging doubts about it.

This is legit?

This is address that shows when I log in - https://www.raisin.co.uk

Normally when I transfer money to another bank or company, I transfer a little test amount, less than £1, just to make sure I've put in the right a/c and sort code number and all that thing, and if it turns out that I've been scammed, I wouldn't even try and get my test payment back.

Started a new job in January and the pension contributions are taken out as pension deductions not salary sacrifice so my pension comes out after tax and then the 20% tax is refunded. This has decreased my motivation to save into my pension as I’m not saving on NI or student loan contributions. Am I thinking of this the wrong way? Are their any other benefits to paying the pensions this way that I don’t know about? I will pay in enough to get the matched percentage but it’s a bit disheartening

Hi all hope this is the right place. Im hoping to close on a house in the next week or two and will have money left over which i want to put into investments.

So thinking of applying for a 0% Credit Card to kit the house out with, rather than spend my savings. And this way ill earn interest on my savings too.

Id prefer to have the CC before i move in/complete on the house.

Would applying for a CC now have any effect on my mortgage? The mortgage is all approved, good to go.

Thanks 🙂.

Just reached 66 and deliberating whether I should start taking State Pension (SP) immediately. I am currently working full time making around £30k. I am able to currently save about £300pcm in ISA so no need for SP right now.

Since I don't need the SP cash currently I am looking into delaying taking it as it will increase by 1% for every 9 weeks of delay. This is not a great deal but I don't have the use for the money now especially as it would be taxed so quite tempted to have a better pension when I don't work anymore.

• Can I take the State Pension and put it into SIPP to get the 25% bonus from HMRC at my age? I don't have a SIPP currently, only the employer's DC pension scheme.
• for the £300pcm I'm saving into ISA if I put the money into SIPP instead can I take the money out for an emergency and then still contribute to that SIPP later on?

Recently joined a new company and I'm able to expense a gym membership through their learning & wellness budget.

The one I'm looking at is £50 a month, or £600 a year. I've heard this sort of thing can often be considered a taxable benefit, like a company car is.

How does this work in practice? Do I have to manually file taxes? How much would I be liable to pay in extra tax for something of that value?

Around a decade ago I got myself in a bit of a mess and ended up on a DMP with StepChange.

The DMP ended around 2016/17 with all debts paid off in full.

I have just received an email from Lowell collection agency, who one of my debts had been passed to confirming I have overpaid by £200 and they will process a refund.

I just paid a set amount to StepChange who then divvied it up between all my creditors so between them and Lowell something obviously got miscalculated, which I don’t believe was my fault as StepChange were the ones managing payments and liaising with my creditors.

Seems a bit of a liberty it’s taken Lowell 7 years to realise and notify me I’d overpaid by such a significant amount. I am wondering if I’m within my rights to request interest be added on to the overpayment refund seeing as they’ve kept hold of MY money for so long through no fault of my own? And if so what is the best way to go about it?

I have a healthy cash reserve in my LTD company and would like to increase my employer pension contributions.

However, if the employer pension contributions and dividends are greater than the turnover in this financial year will this be a problem? (I would always leave a healthy cash reserve in the business account).

Stuck in my head and trying to figure out if I'm headed in the right direction.

40k in a S&S LISA (max it out each year and will do that for 6 more years before I turn 50).

50k SIPP (pay in £150 per month)

45k S&S ISA (not topping this up at the moment - rainy day kind of thing. Might move some of this into the SIPP)

I also have a deferred LGPS pot that at the current point in time should pay out £6,655 each year but obv goes up with inflation/CPI. Can't touch that before 2047 along with state pension. Predicting that will be approx 12k a year by the time I can take it.

I'm self-employed now (past 7 years full-time) and average take-home pay (after tax) of 30k each year.

Mortgage will be down to 5 figures next year or so.

Married, 2 kids (pre-teen) - my wife has (much larger) LGPS.

I'd love to be able to semi-retire and perhaps career change aged 50-55 but not sure if I'll have the funds in the SIPP to pay myself to do that. Any thoughts appreciated :)

Hello everybody,

I retired in November 2023 and I left the country in January. I wanted to know if I need to tell the pensions department that I have left the country?

I can access the bank account that my pension falls into in the country that I retired to so I don't have to ask them to change any bank accounts. I also don't have a job here so there shouldn't be any issues when it comes to tax.

Would there be any issues if I don't come back to the UK for a couple of years? Years ago I knew a retired chap who would come to the UK every 6 months so he could keep getting his pension but from searching online there doesn't seem to a rule about this so I wonder why he used to do that.

Would there be any issues if I just don't say anything?

Thanks for reading.

I’m fairly competent in my own personal finances, knowledge slowly gained over the years/decades. But that’s overseas.

I left the UK last century and my knowledge of personal finances in the UK is at best dated, I don’t (really) know my OEIC from my ISA, don’t really know what’s here referred to as a “pension”, I don’t know my M&G from my Janus from my Neville from my SJP, etc.

(Back here in the UK) Dad died a year or two ago, I’ve got everything moved over to Mum, I have LPA for Mum.

Specific question:

overseas I periodically use the services of a chap (I forget what his title or accreditation is, “financial planner”, something like that), I pay him a flat fee and in exchange I get a 2 hour meeting with him and a follow-up report from him and a 2 week period thereafter to ask email questions of clarification, etc. I do this every 2 or 3 years, or "as needed".

Does that facility exist here in the UK? I’m being told not, everyone wants to manage Mum’s finances for a  %-age fee, or sell me a financial product, saying they are legally obligated to do so rather than what I want. Is that true?

Thanks,

Hi All,

I've created a new account for anonymity - given my main Reddit account has been active for over a decade and known by family. My brain isn't working properly and I would really welcome and appreciate your help.

My wife recently filed for divorce (the return of her childhood sweetheart recently swept her off her feet). I'm 45. We have 2 children. I/ we were expecting to be financially independent in 5 years time. The plan was to reduce working hours, do things we prefer, and spend more time as a family...but I digress.

When assets are split, it looks like I will have the following (all figures approximate but high probability of accuracy):

1. £260K cash.
2. £50K pension (SIPP).
3. £170K home (current value). I currently let my elderly mother stay in this property rent-free (her horrendous life has earned her at least this comfort). Should my mother need care (I hope not) all of this may be exhausted to cover costs.
4. £30K crypto (predominantly Bitcoin)

Currently I am a contractor with an average monthly take-home of £4.5K, however, I am planning to go perm asap, with an ~£80k salary and - hopefully - around 10% employer pension contributions. I intend to take as little salary as possible and max-out pension contributions (including employer contributions).

A modest home close to the children's schools will cost up to £300K (I'd prefer to not stretch that far if possible and get something less but, that depends on availability). I was wanting to put down a good deposit (maybe 100K) to keep monthly payments low and total outgoings no-greater than 2.5K.

My main goal is to ensure I am maximising pension contributions and potentially building up an ISA. However, I'm really not sure what to do with regard to the mortgage and potentially spare cash if I say, have £150K remaining (some into SIPP, other into ISA?).

Dragged myself off a council estate. Thought I was doing OK...

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.