What to do with house sale money

[CarrotPuff]

We are in slightly odd position. We have relocated and moved in with family, and sold our house. We have almost £200k left from the sale. We will need this money to buy a house for ourselves when the arrangement with the family over, but we don't know when that would be - it could be in 2 years, or it could be in 20.

A lot of people would have rented the house out, but it's not something we wanted to do and there were some expenses before it was tenant ready which we didn't really have money for.

I don't want the money to get eaten by inflation, but there isn't a savings account that would pay enough interest, is there? I know we need proper financial advice, but I just wanted to have a look myself at what our options are first.

How risky is S&S ISA? I know they say you can lose all of the money, but does it actually happen? I wouldn't put all of it there anyway, just some of it to keep on top of inflation.

Another alternative would be to invest in BTL locally, but property market isn't as buoyant here as where we've moved from.

Any other options? Most savings accounts are limited to very small sums and only pay good interest for a year or so, unless I've missed something?

You have high interest balance protection for 6 months from when the money went in, then after that FSCS protection limit is £85k.

No savings accounts pay anywhere near inflation rate. With Notice accounts I expect give the most interest but they are at around 1% currently.

S&S ISA can take up to £20,000 per tax year. So could take quite some time to fill that. You can certainly lose money. The longer the investment timescale the less likely it is, as stock market generally goes up, but a loss is possible.

£50,000 can be put in Premium Bonds. No interest but a chance of getting winnings. May not out pace inflation as I think average return is around 1.3%.

There is no great way at the moment to out pace inflation without taking risk.

Thank you for your reply! I pretty much came to that conclusion myself, just thought maybe I'm missing something... Will stick everything in ISAs and PB and have a think!