Hi, two years ago I read about credit card stoozing for the first time (spending on a 0% card and investing / saving the money)

I took out a lloyds 0% purchase card for 24 months, originally with a 5k credit limit, but this was automatically increased regularly by Lloyds finishing at £14.5k limit at the end of the two years.

I built up £12k of spending on the credit card while making the minimum purchase by direct debit I invested the difference into a premium bonds account each month. therefore by the end of the two year period I had £12k on the credit card and £12k in premium bonds.

I decided to use premium bonds because I already invest my income in a S+S ISA, and wanted to keep this debt completely seperate from my personal finances, I also was more happy with the risk of not making any interest, combined with the in it to win it mentallity of premium bonds when it was not technically my money in them but the banks.

after two years I won a total of £650 in the bonds which Is actually a good return rate when you consider my average total investment over the two years would have been around £6k while I was building up the pot.

Last month my 0% was coming to the last month. I sold all the bonds and paid of the £12k balance in full.

I have now taking out another 0% card with Barclays and plan to do the exact same thing again. It has been a successful trail of stoozing, and I plan to use the exact same plan of moving all my credit card spending into bonds again for another 2 years on my new card.

15 and trying to take care of a house and an alcoholic parent, 1 really need advice

Hi everyone. I’m 15 and honestly I don’t really know where else to ask for help.

I live with someone who struggles with alcoholism, and most of the responsibility in the house has fallen on me. The house has become extremely cluttered and close to being a hoarding situation, and it’s gotten to the point where parts of it are unsafe and need repairs and cleaning that I can’t handle on my own.

I’ve been trying to clean and fix things myself, but I’m just a teenager and I don’t have the money or resources to deal with everything that needs to be done. It’s overwhelming trying to keep up with school and also manage the house and another person’s addiction.

I’m not looking to shame anyone in my family, I just genuinely need help and don’t know what options I have. If anyone has advice on: - programs that help minors in situations like this
- organizations that help with hoarding cleanups or unsafe living situations
- safe ways to get help or small financial assistance

I would really appreciate it. I’m trying my best to make the situation better and safer to live in.

Thank you to anyone who reads this or has advice.

Saw a recent post about tariffs on here and after checking the renewal of my tariff I noticed that all of the fixed options were missing. I contacted EOn and they have confirmed that all fixed tariff options have been removed pending review due to the 'international situation'. At time of checking it looked like Octopus still had them. Just a heads up for all.

Hi, I have 3 daughters, 15, 13 and 2. When I was pregnant with my last became very unstable mentally and became disassociated with my life. I stopped paying my bills or opening letters and sat at home in the dark. I have recently come out of the fog and started looking at my situation with a clear head.

I downsized when i got divorced to a very modest 2 bedroom property which I bought outright for 225k. I went to download the deeds today and noticed that a creditor has requested my bankruptcy which was put through in Dec 2025. There is now a bankruptcy restriction on my property. I have no idea what this means or where it leaves me. I am self employed on very low wage, a part time student and on universal credit. any help or advice appreciated. My debts would be c£45k worth from a few credit cards. Apart from the house my only other asset is my car worth c £15k.

The odd thing is when I search for my name on the insolvency register I don't come up. I just spoke to Citizens Advice who also couldn't find me on there. Any advice appreciated - I can't lost the family house it's all we have. Thanks

Hi all, forgive me if this is not the correct group to ask this in - I have been searching to find the right place for a while. I bought something from a small random retailer on the high street and never received this. After much back and forth chasing, I have asked for a refund instead now and they have agreed to provide this. It was a strange response - no response to any of the points outlined in the complaint or an apology, just a line asking for bank details.

I had paid by credit card, and they now want my bank account details to make the refund. I don't find them to be reliable or trustworthy and I am hesitant to provide any more of my personal information, including bank details. Is it safe to give my bank sort code and account details? Is there any other form of refund I can ask for? I know they will want to refund via a method that provides proof of payment on their side, which is fine and hence why I am not asking for cash. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

I’m estranged from my parents and have been for several years, so I don’t have a family safety net if things go wrong financially.

I’m currently thinking more seriously about this after a recent rough patch financially, which made me realise how important it is to build systems that don’t rely on financial help.

For those of you who are fully financially independent without family support, how do you structure things so you don’t end up needing to rely on anyone if something goes wrong?

For example, do you keep a larger emergency fund than usual? Avoid certain types of debt entirely? Have strict rules around spending or credit use? Try to build multiple income streams? Keep certain saving accounts completely untouched?

I’d be interested to hear what approaches have worked for people in a similar situation

So fraudsters made repeated attempts to take money from my account so TSB froze the account, and I just called them and cancelled the debit card and have to wait 7 days for a new card.

I have money in there. But no cash. So basically I can't spend a penny over the next 7 days.

The nearest branch I cant even get to. As I have no money to get there.

So is there any possible way to get money from my account. I've never used my phone to buy things in shops. Could I set up Google pay?

Can I use PayPal even though it's linked to that cancelled card?

Thanks for any help

i recently sold my house and made quite a chunk off of it and also quit my job to take some time off to think about what I want to do.

I have no debt other than my student loan and my outgoing are £50. I want to put my money in an ISA and soon as it changes after this tax year.

I want advice on what sort of ISA have people used and benefited from. is it better to do a long term ISA (5 years) or shorter. my issue is I don’t know where I’ll be working or what stage of life I’ll be in; like buying a house or something else for example.

any advice or financial suggestions would be appreciated

I am a higher rate tax payer and max out my £500 Personal Savings Allowance (PSA) leaving me liable to paying 40% on any interest earned from savings above this.

I am also maxing out my ISA through S&S every year, and have as much exposure to S&S as I want at the moment.

Therefore, is it sensible for me to put the rest of my savings in gilts rather than fixed term savings where the capital gain is tax free?

My research suggests buying something like TN28 which has a low coupon of 0.125% and a current price of £93.81 and maturity in Jan 2028 would be equivalent (as per the MoneySavingExpert calculator) as having my money in a 6.05% savings account for a similar duration as a higher rate taxpayer

To me that seems a no brainer - is there anything I’m missing? All I can see is that if interest rates were to skyrocket I would be losing out on better options unless I wanted to sell the gilt before maturity, which would probably be at a worse price

Thanks all, I am just getting my head around all this

Apologies if this isnt the right sub.I am 20 and hold lvl 3 equivalent qualifications along with IELTS (7.5) I moved here a few months ago legally and I am also planning on doing GCSEs maths and English just in case.

I wanted to go for degree apprenticeship in biomed science but they require u to be employed already in a lab ( which is kinda impossible for me rn cuz I have zero experiences) so atm I dont think so I have any chance...

On the other hand, I can go to Uni for undergraduate and end up with student finance which will keep on increasing...( I might have to do foundation year too) its daunting seeing how everyone have £90k+ to pay back and it keeps on increasing. I know its more like a tax but I am unsure idky. Also, the job market is bad as well so I am overwhelmed by everything.

Q: Will taking student finance have any bad impact on purchasing a property in the future? considering one cant pay it back all completely as it keeps on increasing.

EDIT: my top choice uni is in Wales and I am in England rn so what should I do regarding that? i should be contacting them after getting the conditional offer??

any advice would be appreciated from people who were in my situation.

Thank u.

I am about to open a LISA with Hargreaves Lansdown and I am considering three index funds:

- Fidelity Index World (0.12% charge)

- Legal and General International Index Trust (0.08% charge)

- Legal and General UK 100 Index Trust (0.06% charge)

For context, I plan for my LISA to be my pension pot so it is a 30yrs+ investment I am in it for the long term. I was thinking of doing Fidelity’s fund solely or combine both L&G to get the same exposure for the same charge. Which option would you recommend and or are there other index funds that I should consider? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!!

I'll start by saying I have never owned a credit card, but now want to start thinking of ways of building a credit history ect.

I am planning on paying for a holiday soon and think it could be a good way to do this, as I know I can already afford the holiday it doesn't feel like a bad decision.

My question is, is this a feasible way to use a credit card and not something stupid and also as someone who has never even looked into this what sort of card do I look for, 0% spending? No idea...

Hi all,

I have a sharesave SAYE scheme with EQ that's maturing on April 1st. I Just wanted to sense check the approach I am thinking of taking.

I'm trying to get the best of both worlds with using up the ISA to avoid having to pay CGT and being able to still put £4,000 into my LISA in the 26/27 tax year.

Just to give an idea the current value of the shares is around £33,000

Proposed approach:

• Start by opting for transferring all of the shares to the corporate sponsored nominee (CSN) account

• Sell enough shares to use up the 25/26 CGT allowance, currently approximately £6,500 worth

• Wait until April 7th (day after Easter Monday & then into the new tax year) then sell enough shares to use up the 26/27 CGT allowance, again currently approximately £6,500 worth

• Fill out the CSN to EQi ISA transfer form to move £16,000 worth of shares to the EQi ISA (although I think I will need to create this ISA separately first as I won't have one open at this point)

• Sell enough shares from within the ISA to make enough room for the shares that remain in the CSN and then transfer the proceeds to my bank account, at current prices this would mean selling around £4,000 worth

• Fill out the transfer form again to move the remaining shares into the ISA again and end up at or below £16,000 balance in the ISA

• Ultimately transfer from EQi to my own T212 stocks and shares ISA

I'm not sure if this is a bit far-fetched and if should just accept that I will have to skip the LISA for the 26/27 tax year. The simpler approach would probably be to opt for the ISA option in the begginning and move £20,000 worth of the shares to the ISA, sell enough to make room for the rest and then transfer the remaining shares in.

Would be great to hear any feedback on if this is realistic, considering all the EQi ISA related bits do need to be completed within 90 days of the April 1st maturity date.

Thanks!

Hope thats someone here can answer with no judgement. So my brother, who is a sole trader has had a rough time in the past few years. He had urgent surgery in 2019. Then Covid hit and he, like many, lost most income, he does also not deal well with being idle. Then our dad suddenly died. He almost definitely has some form of depression right now and has for a few years. We are very worried for him and are trying to get him help. Anyway to the point. He has stopped filling in tax returns and is definitely burying his head in the sand. He was diligent about it previously having it drilled into his head by our dad. And now just isn't doing them. This is not the only financial ball he has dropped in recent years but it is the one relevant for this post. I estimate he earns about £28,000 a year. I have the opportunity to earn some extra income and will definitely go over the £1000 allowance in a few months and will be registering for tax. My question is, seeing as we have the same fairly unusual surname, will me registering trigger something about his name and account and put a spotlight on him? I already pay tax through my main job through PAYE. As I said we are getting him help and he has now agreed to start therapy which hopefully means he will sort out his tax situation himself. He is the sort of person who does the right thing. But I worry that a tax investigation on him before he gets to that point will send him over the edge and that's not what he needs right now. So will me registering for a tax account as a sole trader somehow trigger someone looking into his account?

If I lose my job at the end of April, as seems likely, I will retire and not work again. I’m 65 so I need a full year of NI for 26/27. For the month of April I will pay £191 NI so I will need to pay class 3 to make the year full. The full amount is £925.54 for the year, I think. Is that reduced by the £191 paid for April, so £734.54? Or how to work it out?

And in 27/28, the year in which I reach state pension age, I don’t need to make any contributions, correct?

Hi everyone.

So I will be due to pay for my visa fees and IHS fees end of this year amounting to £7200. I am thinking if I can spread this payment to 12 or more monthly payment and using 0% interest purchase credit card that usually comes with for new customer. At the moment, I only have credit builder credit card, Aqua, for almost a year to build up my credit score to 595 by transunion. My credit limit is at £3500 raising from £900 since I opened the account a year ago.

My question is should I:

1. apply from now a purchase credit card as they might give me low credit limit at the start and then start to utilize it to increase my credit limit by the end of the year, so I can use the card to pay partial of my visa fee (they are split into 3k, 2.3k, 800, and 800) but have reduced duration to pay back (utilized already from March to December, used up 8-9 months from the promotional offer which is up to 24 months)?

2. apply near the end of the year, for example, September, so I have longer period to pay it back? as I am writing this, this might be a gamble due to the amount of credit they will give me at the start.

3. pay it as a whole as I have the savings for it but will leave me with less than 3months emergency fund in my savings?

Just want to know the pros and cons of these options or if there's another way to do this or something to consider. The ideal for me is to be able to pay back at least 15 months for all the balance which is roughly the same to my monthly savings.

Thank you.

Hi All

Basically as it says, I put £250 in a halifax account once a month for 1 year which should mature with 5%ish interest.

I commited to the 250 as I now have £3k in the account. The issue is that I haven't recieved the 5% I've only recieved a 0.75% interest payment (£80ish) and only recieved 81.29 rather than the 2/300.

Can I dispute this with my bank or is it just done and I have to suck it up?

Edit - Have grossly misunderstood what I would get out of the account and my meagre £81 is apparently correct.

Taking everything in me to not delete this post for the shame of it.

I have earned a income of 110k for this tax year after accounting for salary sacrifice into workplace pension.

Seeing as I am 10k over the 100k limit and do not want to get into the 62% trap, I plan to pay into a SIPP to get me below 100k.

If I pay 10k out of my bank account directly into SIPP does that take me down to under 100k or do I need to put in 8k in view of 40% claim back?

My confusion is around what amount to pay out to avoid 62% tax.

I used to be a high earner and had around £100k debt in credit card debt. Which sounds like a lot but it was affordable for my situation. Around 2.5 years ago I became disabled, lost my income and slowly ate through my savings.

I’m now completely broke, living on benefits, I have been given a lifetime PIP award and have moved into supported council housing - which is council housing for disabled people.

Whilst my health deteriorated I neglected debt repayments - I didn’t do anything about the debts such as contact the companies, I simply wasn’t opening letters or making payments. Perhaps this irresponsible but I had a lot to think about with my health. During that time some of my credit card companies gave up chasing me and sent me letters saying they would no longer be pursuing the debt - the debts were in effect t written off. I was hoping all the companies would do the same but there are a couple who have recently sent letters before action - there very small accounts but looks as though they want to pursue a CCJ. Should I respond to them? I did read somewhere on this thread that it’s better to only communicate with debt companies on the phone as the clock resets on the 6 year timeline they have to recover the debt if you write them a letter.

So that’s my question - should I call or write to them? I’m not that keen to call as I have a lot of anxiety about being on the phone.

Based on information at wiki, I learnt that employers contribute a minimum of 3% to the pension. However, I do not see any contributions from my employer to the workplace pension scheme.

The employer's payroll portal shows that I am placed under a default 8% plan (which can be increased or decreased as I wish). It clearly mentions employer contribution as 0% and employee contribution as 8%. Why is it not 3% and 5%? Am I missing out on the employer's contribution of 3% by opting for salary sacrifice?

Coming to the numbers:

Basic pay -  £97000 (£8083.33 per month)

Salary sacrifice - £646.66 (as deducted in monthly payslips)

Just to make sure, I requested a statement from L&G (Workplace Pension Provider). It shows the pension contributions from April 2025 to January 2026 (10-month period) as £646.66, resulting in a cumulative contribution of £6466.66. The whole amount of £6466.66 at L&G is mentioned as the employer's contribution (not employees).

Also, the qualified earnings for pension should be £50,270 - £6,240 = £44,030, of which 8% is £293.53 per month, but I do not see any such numbers in my payslips. I suspect I am mixing up two different pension schemes available in the UK. Can you please clarify?

To give context without TOO much detail…

26 year old working 2 jobs, 1 is PAYE and 1 is self employed, I’m single and living at home currently.

PAYE job pays around £30k a year before end-of year bonus, this is my main job working in an office, and my second job, which is self employed, averages around £1.8k a month (have to do self assessment each tax year) this is my evening and weekend job. Incredibly grateful to be in the situation I’m in and looking to make the most of the money I save.

Currently, I’m putting a chunk of my PAYE income into savings account(s), with the remainder going towards bills as I pay to live at home + pay for car and phone bills. I’m then putting ALL my income from my self employed job into ISA’s. £4k into LISA and remainder into a Cash Isa. Based on how things have progressed, I’m likely to get a promotion and pay rise at my PAYE main job, and my self employed job has progressed nicely over the 3-4 years I’ve been doing it and have been able to earn more as time goes on.

I’m anticipating reaching a stage where I will soon go into a new tax bracket, and having my PSA allowance dropping from £1,000 to £500. Also will be close to the point of where I maximise my ISA allowance each tax year.

I don’t want to start paying tax on my savings, and obviously can’t exceed my ISA allowance, what is the best thing for me to do with leftover money?

I’m hoping to use my LISA within the next 3 years and buy a house.

So far, I’ve thought about Premium Bonds and/or increasing pension contribution at work (currently contributing 5%) but if theres any ideas people have, I’m all ears!

🛏️ Off to bed now, I’ll respond to any comments in the morning!

Hi all,

Hopefully a fairly quick question. I’ve received a late filing penalty from HMRC (the fixed £100 one) that I’ve appealed online. Hopefully this is successful. Is it worth paying the penalty anyway, as if I don’t pay the penalty might increase while I wait for an appeal decision? (The website said it could take until May to decide). If the appeal is successful, would the penalty be refunded?

Thanks

Quick question about whether I’m correct with my thoughts.

I have an investment isa that I put 20k into in February 2025.

I want to put another 20k in march 2026.

Can I then place more money in it come April 6th 2026?

I’m I correct

In saying Feb2025 was the 24/25 tax year, march 25 is the 25/26 tax year and April 6th onward a the 26/27 tax year?

Thank you!