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I'm a bit of a doofus with anything financial but I recently surrendered a policy to help with our house purchase so have a bit of 'rainy day' money and have been looking at opening an ISA.

Concious that the tax year ends in April 2021, is it worth me doing anything immediately, i.e will I get any benefit at all or would I be better waiting until after April to open an ISA?

As always, any advice greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Barbara.

Depends how much you have to invest.

 You are limited to 20k a year, so if you have lots of dough you want to sink into an ISA (more than 20k) you would need to do both .

But I reckon Samdy or someone will have more specific advice

I was aware of the 20k limit and could invest that sum, if it could be beneficial.

Yeah I was thinking Samdy might be the go to guy.

ISA allowances are use it or lose it. So if you have the money, stick it in before the end of the tax year. Although you might not think you'll use up your allowance for both this year and next, you never know.

Generally, interest on cash ISAs is hard to come by these days. The tax benefits (although the same) are more advantageous in a stocks and shares ISA where you'd expect more growth. But stocks and shares aren't for everyone.

Thanks Samdy/4D.

Yeah I know interest rates are ridiculously low currently so I reckon I would split between Cash and Stocks and Shares. With the economy being in tatters across the world currently, you would imagine share prices are surely only going to go in one direction - fully aware its speculation and could go down as well as up!

You could keep your cash in a separate savings account, you'll probably get more interest than on a cash ISA.

So long as you don't need the money in the short term and can allow the time to sit out any volatility, it's investing not speculating.

Would premium bonds be an option for the cash?  (asking for myself)

The equivalent interest rate on premium bonds is about the best you can get on instant access cash savings at the moment.

Cheers Samdy, I'll have a look at the S&S ISA. When the Pandemic hit last year I put a very very small amount of money into some shares using Revolut, as a kind of practice I suppose. These are now up 60%. I wouldn't even dream of doing similar with a larger amount of money in an ISA, i'll make sure its properly managed!

After paying off mortgage and bills with my redundancy payment I lumped into premium bonds. I think it now pays out about 1% down from 1.4% previously but better than any savings account. You can also get your money out quickly so not tied up to any fixed term
Had money in for 4 draws and won £25 last month.
Next step is a stocks and shares ISA. There are quite a few low fee  providers.

During lockdown I got into stocks&shares using trading 212. I haven't put silly money into it but small amounts each week. I have around a 50% return on my investment at the moment. I'm aware how volatile these things can be so very cautions about managing risk but it's been very enjoyable

Fair play. Quite easy to make returns in the past couple of months. Come back when you've been through a crash though and tell us how you feel then ;)