If you were given £20k

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if you were given £20k inheritance what would you do?

If you generally struggle in very hand to mouth existence, better off than many, I have no pension, we own a mortgaged house that isn’t really big enough, house also needs a fair bit of work done to it, DH has loan to pay for his car, I have student loan, my car is 13 years old.

Would you do up the house, move, or put aside to move? I’m worried DH will want to pay off his car loan to be debt free or just overpay mortgage, but I’m desperate to move so kids will have a bedroom each, and maybe even a second bathroom! I’m fed up with living on top of each other!

I had similar. I spent about £10k on essential house repairs (new windows, replastering) 5k went on a great family holiday and 5k is saved. I was very happy that the house looks loads better, the holiday was amazing and there's a bit in the bank for emergencies. It felt the money had stretched further than if it had all gone into one thing.

@Lalalalala555

Excellent post.

You don't mention opp putting some into a sipp though.

I'd put 5 grand into index / sipp (self invested perosnal pension).
5 into Stocks and shares isa

3 into good cash isa instant access or pb... For emergency.

Leaving 7 for whatever else.

Less than inflation, so you’re losing value every month.

You can buy 3 bed semis with gardens, drive and garage for c£180,000 here. If you go less desirable areas you can get 3 bed semis 4 below £150,000.

Put it in premium bonds and take your time to decide

put it into a fixed rate savings account for a year. Then decide what to do.

Explained multiple times - I was incredibly ill throughout my 20’s. It’s nothing short of a miracle that I’m alive. It’s another miracle that I’m now a fully functioning member of society as it were. Early 30’s I started on a career track (4 years low salary payment to pension), then redundancy, then retrain d and launched a business. It’s taken longer to turn a proper profit thanks to covid lockdowns.

Not everyone has an easy/straightforward path in life.

We need to check the details, I think it’s a hefty early repayment fee.

I would put it towards my house deposit

Why on earth do you even have car loans in the first place when you have such little security?

Well I'd regard the car loan as jointly mine because any money we have is share between us. So it would make m9ost sense to pay that off to save the interest payments. Then, if there is any left over, part of the mortgage to reduce monthly outgoings. Unless you can find a larger, but cheaper, house, moving won't make life easier if you are living hand to mouth. Moving to a bigger place would mean needing more furniture, probably needing to redecorate or buy new carpets or curtains etc, as well as the other moving expenses. I wouldn't see £20,000 as life changing - it sounds like a lot but it will soon be eaten up.

Jobs are 100% dependent on having a decent reliable car. We made a couple duff car purchases that cost us so much money, so we took out a small loan to buy a decent 3 year old car. It wasn’t what either of us really wanted to do, but unless you’ve shopped for secondhand cars lately you might not realise they’ve pretty much tripled in value in the last 3 years. Cheaper in the long run than endless repairs on a 12 year old banger that might cost me a big contract.

Better to put it into a savings account while you decide, rather than it earn £0 sitting in a current account.

I'd pay £15,000 of my mortgage, it would lower my mortgage payments and give me more equity when we moved. £4,000 for debt repayment and the rest for fun.

There's a good ISA with around a 5% interest at the moment, you can put 20K in one a year, I'd start one of these. They're tax free also

I personally would prioritise paying debt off. Less interest to pay later on.

Id pay off debt.

How much is the car loan, and if it gets repaid is your DH sensible enough about money that those payments will immediately come back into the ‘family/house move’ pot?

What mortgage do you currently have?

Is there anything you can do with th the money that would increase your earning potential?
The €900 I spent on getting a qualification has increased my salary by 12K.

It should all go to pension then.

That’s a very good idea - I feel I’ve hit a ceiling in my business at the moment so maybe investing in a some mentoring will help. There’s just so many useless ones in my industry.

I'd buy a really nice, spacious, good quality car!

How old are you?

I suspect you really need to put it in your pension/start one.

I'd love to say car or savings but chances are I'd spunk the lot in home bargains over several visits.

Pay off credit card and put the rest to saving for improvements to my son's home (which I own). It now really needs an upgrade.