to ask how to get the best out of your savings?

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Posting for traffic, hope it’s ok :)

We are likely to have a couple of major shifts in jobs within the next couple of months which means we will be able to finally save for our first house! Yippeee!

We will both have enough to max out a help to buy ISA each month, but will also have enough to save on top of this too.

Neither of us have legitimately been able to save anything decent in our whole working lives so this will be a first for us and we have literally no clue how to make it work for us? (Please don’t judge)

Premium bonds? ISAs? Just whack it in a bank account? Anything amazing we might be missing out on? It’s a bit mind boggling to say the least

How have you made it work for you?

We got our first mortgage through the nation wide first time buyers isa. Means they will be willing to lend up to 95% mortgage with a 5% deposit.

I'm sure other banks will offer similar so may be worth looking into these and finding the one that suits you best.

@Kattatty87 our friends have just done this. The 5% deposit thing is great for first time buyers! It’s genuinely ridiculously hard to get on the ladder where we are (low low wages and relatively high house prices)

With a bit of work you can set up regular savings plans, although only small amounts they are giving some of the better interest rates

Swap a bank account with 2 direct debits to get a M&S account and then open a regular savings account for£250 to get 5%

Nationwide also offer regular savings at 5% find a friend with a nationwide account (if you don’t have an account) and get £100 referral

Then there is also first direct bank regular saver

ISA aren’t paying great interest rates but you could put the money you save this year Aling with interest into an ISA next tax year then start the regular saving accounts again

Know how long you are prepared to have savings tied up for is something that may help in the choices you make.

We are going to need to save for a minimum of 18 months but will continue saving after that until a suitable property comes up. So I’d say 18 months to 2 years ideally.

@ivykaty44 - off to look into some of these, really helpful thank you