To wonder what to do with the money

[Quandary2018]

Parents have very generously gifted me 25k which, while a substantial sum of money, is not enough for me to use as a deposit on a house as I’m a single parent who works part time and I simply don’t earn enough to get a mortgage so- what do I do with the money?
Am thinking maybe some savings for the kids and a holiday but that seems wasteful so what would you do with 25k that isn’t mortgage related

I'd also recommend posting your question on the Money Saving Expert forum.

My 2p:

• Whatever you do try make sure it doesn't affect your benefits, so either ask your parents to hold on to part of it, or use some of it to pay of debts (if you have any).

• Rather than receiving the money in dribs and drabs I would ask you parents to hold onto all of it, or at least £20k. My DH received an insurance payout 8 years ago. It was enough for a deposit but we were in no position to buy. 5.5 years later we finally bought somewhere. At times it was frustrating to have the money just sit there, and ye, house prices have gone up in that period, but having saved that insurance money still helped us enormously when we were in a position to buy.

@IAskTooManyQuestions

We have £5k gaining 5% in Nationwide accounts and my S&S Vanguard account has achieved 25% over the last 2-3 years. Over 20-30 years - as long as I don’t touch it when markets dip and panic when I lose funds - a good whole market, whole world fund should achieve at least 9%. So yes, I think that’s shit. Even compared to guaranteed cash ISAs the premium bonds absolutely don’t stack up. There’s so many articles on it from finance experts and in money sections of the papers.

For anyone interested in investing I thoroughly recommend The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins, Bogleheads (website) or Mr Money Mustache (blog). It’s a wonderful get rich slow approach which relies on market growth as a whole rather than stock picking.

One of my teen DDs has a very addictive personality and she was starting to look at scratch cards and lotto tickets which freaked me the hell out. I told her all about premium bonds and how Agent M could one day knock on her door. She now gets the thrill of waiting for that knock every month rather than the scratch card addiction and her money is safe. She has absolutely shit luck but that doesn't seem to matter to her - the dream is still the same and I can sleep at night.