To ask what you would do with £45K?

[fortunatelynot]

Due to bereavement I have inherited £45K. I am 39, have my own mortgage of about £110K which is due to end in about 16 years.
I earn a reasonable wage, have a bit saved, but not loads and 1k in premium bonds. I have one credit card debt of 4K which I have on interest free card for another two years. I have two teenage children whom I largely support financially on my own.

I know it is not a completely life changing amount of money but would be interested to know what any of you financial savvy people would do to maximise the benefits. Thank you!

I would see a financial advisor.

10k off mortgage (to reduce monthly payments, not the term)
5k on a family holiday
2.5k to each of children's savings accounts
25k to savings

I would build an extention on to my house or move, but probably the extention because I like where I live.

Pay off credit card
£5000 into savings
Pay rest off mortgage

Pay off you me credit card - even interest free it’s a monthly outgoing you don’t need.
Pay a (big) lump off you mortgage (although I’d try and reduce amount and term a bit off possible, maybe even use the lump sum to remortgage to a lower interest rate and reduce monthly amount that way.)
A holiday sounds like a good idea then save!

Pay off credit card
Invest in long term savings account
Nice holiday
Update car

Oh and pay off my credit card it's only 2k and interest fee, but I just want it gone.

I’d pay off the credit card and put the rest towards your mortgage. You’d almost halve it!

Lower monthly mortgage payments but not the term. If that's possible..?
Pay off credit card and lower the limit. Just enough for emergencies.
Take kids on a holiday. Nothing to extravagant. Put rest into savings for you and the kids

Why would you not reduce the term-it’s a no brainier-why would you pay all the extra interest? So pay off credit card, I’d pay off at least 30,000 off mtge (or as much as I could without penalty so possibly over pay each month (reducing term). Have a fabulous holiday, some new clothes.

I would reduce the mortgage by £41k and pay off the credit card in full. Then would only use credit card when you can pay it off in full immediately.

Reducing the mortgage will cut your monthly outgoings and you can use the difference to save for a holiday.

I would pay 10k off mortgage. 5k on family holiday. 30k in savings.

I would keep 3 months salary as cash savings maybe even 6 months in case of job loss or unexpected costs.
After that I would work out how much I needed to save for Uni if your kids are likely to want to go.
I'd go on a nice holiday as a treat and then pay into your mortgage by decreasing the term and not the monthly repayments and you can probs be mortgage free in 8-10 years time.

Happy days

£4k - pay off credit card.
£6k- for nice things like furnishings/furniture or days out.
£35k - pay off mortgage. Agree it is good to reduce monthly mortgage payments if possible so you have more monthly disposable income to improve daily life.

Invest it until you remortgage if you go down the paying it off your mortgage otherwise you’ll end up with an early repayment charge

If the terms of your mortgage permit it - id be tempted to make an overpayment and restructure your mortgage so that you’re mortgage free by the time you’re 50.

Speak to your mortgage provider or an IFA.

Also worth investing in a fixed rate bond or similar.

And definitely use a couple of thousand to treat yourself - a family holiday or similar.

I would either pay off the card or set aside the money to pay it off. Thereafter I would only not pay off the card in full by direct debit if (a) the borrowing was going to be interest-fee, (b) I had money set aside in the bank account to pay it off and (c) I had set up a calendar reminder to actually pay it off.

The rest I would put into the mortgage, then I would probably increase my pension contributions by the amount of the mortgage payment was reduced, so that I was living off the same amount of money as before. (This is assuming arrangements not already in place for a good pension.)

I would put it into savings for my kids. (Not tell them) with a view to helping them this could be (a small monthly amount) at uni (on top of student loans/grants not instead of) or driving lessons /car (cheap and only if they worked part time to run it) or if they had not used it for these towards house deposit. The house deposit I would only offer to match what they save up to my maximum.

It might even be spent before that age if they had a passion or hobby that they were desperate to pursue. I would get a lot of pleasure if I could support that in an affordable way.

I would love to know I could help my kids but I am very wary of unintended consequences and would never throw money at them and lead them to be entitled and irresponsible even if I had it. I would be particularly wary of them trying to buy a proprty at 20 for example because they knew a deposit was waiting for them and then it all goes for a up. Don't tell them, don't promise them anything and let their lives go at their own pace and help them when they don't expect it.

If a reasonable pension is already in the works, then I'd use the spare money from reduced outgoings (from paying down the mortgage) as I felt appropriate from month to month. In that way I'd be spreading the spending of the extra money over decades and across hundreds of individual monthly spending decisions, which would result in extracting much better utility from it than I would if making a few big spending decisions now.

I have a total of £28k debt, so I would use it firstly to clear that. Then, we need pretty much every room in the house decorating bar the kitchen which has just been done, so I would use the rest for that. If I didn't have the debt or have to do things to the house, I would probably just save it - as you never know what is round the corner.

I would perhaps try to invest in property if I could, but you would need to be able to either get a B2L mortgage, or already have considerable savings to buy a property outright, and that's not me at the moment.

I would pay off your 4K debt. Then ensure I had 6 months living expenses put away somewhere I could easily access if need be but not to be touched other than emergency. For me this would be 6k for essential bills so 10k gone. Then I would save 5k for each of the children only to be accessed when they were sensible enough not to waste it.

Then I would pay 20k off my mortgage if overpayments are allowed. Use the 5k left to book a holiday of a lifetime.

6 months' salary buffer
enough put aside for each child for driving lessons and a cheap car + insurance when the time comes (you don't have to spend it on that when they get there but it would be a lovely sum for them to kick start uni, take a gap year, or do the driving thing)
upgrade anything major that's likely to need doing in the not too distant future - car, boiler, sofas, telly, computer, whatever
Nice family holiday while they still want to come with you
Enough aside to pay of the 0 interest card when the deal runs out
Chunk off the mortgage, increase pension payments to balance (I'm 61, believe me you will thank yourself when the time comes)

I'd pay off the credit card, put 10k in a savings slush fund (ISA, premium bonds or whatever, towards holiday, car, period of unemployment etc.), a lump sum on my pension (depends on your circumstances) and the rest on the mortgage.

Pay off credit card
Anything you want done around house up to £10K
6 months savings buffer
Rest off mortgage

Pay off the debt then reduce the mortgage. The extra money each month can be used for treats on an ongoing basis - or saved.