Hello, I will try and keep it short and summarise my current situation.

I am 49 self employed making about 30k a year ( part time with two toddlers )

I currently have:

42k in a Cash ISA at 3.85% £8.7k in NS&I. £3k Lloyds Saver 6.15% £2.2k Zopa 7.5% £3k cash.

Mortgage 137k left over 20 years.

I have no pension!

At the moment I'm not able to save any money as the kids eat up all I have, but I have been slowly adding a little to their bonds when I can.

£4k total debt being paid back over 36 months on a money transfer credit card at 0% APR.

My issue is I can't work more because of childcare and the money I'm currently making on the ISA, bonds is paying back the 4k debt.

Can anyone please advise me on what I should be doing next. I can add £12k to the cash ISA in April and that would bring in around £160 a month interest, but I don't feel like this is the best way for my money to work for me.

I do not want to invest in the stock market for my own reasons.

Please assist if possible, thank you!

  • I'd reassess your reasons for not wanting to invest in the stock market.

    This ain't some fomo hype train "invest now bro you don't know what you're missing". Investing is a fundamental part of sustaining your life once you're unable to work.

    If you were working back in the glory days of companies that looked after you when you retired, you would have been investing by proxy. If you had a job at a company, you would be investing in your pension. If you pay taxes or have money in the bank, you're still supporting investing just with more steps. It's a fundamental part of how the world works, so there really isn't going to be any way to avoid it for whatever reason you currently are. You should use it like the tool that it is

    parent

    My job is a strange one, so whilst I've been running it for well over a decade work only comes in when someone has suffered. Couple that with an uncertain market, AI bubble and two children depending on me I don't have the stomach for it like I used to. I completely understand I should and I'd love to VWRP and chill but I know as soon as I add Russia will declare war on the rest of Europe and I'll be in the red for the next four years lol.

    parent root

    Have you had a read of the wiki and some of the chats on here about bubbles etc.? Realistically all those reasons are over complicating a very simple question: do you need funds for later in life when you don't have an income? I get that age 49 might seem close to retirement (I'm guessing most people have the idea of 60 or so in there minds as being OAP age), but chances are you'll need cash until your life expectancy, which for arguments sake let's say is 80. 30 years is a long time to ride out any of the bumps you called out (that aren't even guaranteed to happen). It's a choice between guaranteeing losing money to inflation, or the extremely high likelihood that you beat it with investing 

    parent root

  • Can you clarify what the bonds are, please?

    Also, why don't you want to invest in the stockmarket?

    parent

    Oh I just meant premium bonds. As for the stock market I used to invest pre kids but since having two I just can't risk anything and being self employed.

    parent root

    You can't earn returns without taking risk - that's almost a law of nature when it comes to investing.

    If you're not prepared to take investment risk then you're never going to earn more than the risk free rate of return, which is currently 3.75%.

    parent root

  • Hi /u/Currentlyatthecinema, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant:

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    parent

  • Consider a SIPP and use as much salary sacrifice as you can to get as much of the tax from your earnings going into your pension rather than the tax man.

    Live off your savings to compensate.

    Essentially, you would be running down your savings by transferring to your pension. The benefit would be that you would be getting most of your payslip deductions also going into your pension on top.

    Just keep enough outside the SIPP to have an emergency fund.

    Your SIPP doesn't need to be invested in the stock market.

    You can access the money, in your case, when you're 57.

    That's tens of thousands of extra free contributions for your pension if your situation remains the same.

    parent

    Thank you for the explanation. I have been looking into a SIPP but it's confusing. So based on what I have currently saved around 55k what do you think I should do regarding the SIPP ? Thank you once again for your time if you share it.

    parent root

  • Have you tried investing in the stock market?

    parent

    Yes but it wasn't good for my mental health. Pre kids no issue at all, but now at 49 and with two my my appetite for risk is zero.

    parent root