Where shall I put 2k?

[Littlemisspawpatrol]

I'm on a low income, but got 2k saved that I'd like to not touch for a while. Where is the best place to lock it away for a few years and possibly add a bit more to it if I get the opportunity to do so?

Somewhere that's easy to open, will grow with decent interest and not easy to take out.

Thanks in advance.

One year fixed rate bond. I would not look at longer timescales for cash as the rates keep changing.

Investments are really for 5+ years, so I would not use a Stocks & Shares ISA as it sounds like your timescale is shorter than that.

Have you looked at Help To Save? That is £50 per month you pay in, then if you do that every month for 2 years, you have £1200 in the account and they add 50%. That is a far better return than you will get on a normal savings account. Check if you are eligible and consider using it.

@nannynick I'm probably unlikely to ever be able to afford to buy a place, so a help to save account wouldn't work for me, plus I can only afford to save about 10-20 quid a month at the moment.

I was thinking about 5 years of locking it away, actually. I want to create a little nest egg.

I'm hoping for links to the best products.

Help To Save has nothing to do with buying property. You have £2k so could use some of that to pay the monthly amounts.

2 years, paying in £50 per month = £1200 going in, and they give you £600.
If you put £1200 in an investment now, you might make £150 maybe over a 2 year period. So I would see if you are eligible as you say you are on low income.

Here is the link about Help to Save:

www.gov.uk/get-help-savings-low-income

If you want to put £2k away for at least 5 years, then you could use a Stocks and Shares ISA from Vanguard, AJ Bell, Fidelity etc. Some years you may get a good return an other years you may not and may even be negative. Over 5 years you may turn £2k in to £2.5k. However you can keep adding to it.

If you want a guaranteed return then a fixed rate bond product... have a look at best buy tables such as on www.savingschampion.co.uk
I would do a one year bond, then change it every year as rate are likely to change quite a bit over the coming years.

Have you looked at Martin Lewis / Moneysavingexpert for online advice? He's unusually pretty spot on.

MSE currently advises not to tie money up for years precisely due to the fluctuating interest rates.
www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest/#fixedsavings
Here’s a link to their site. Ive just pit some money into a 2 year fixed deal at 4.6%

Oaknorth Bank is paying 3.1% on its 120 day notice account.
oaknorth.co.uk/personal-savings/notice-accounts/

As pp has said the best return is from help to save.

Put the money in a easy access account with the highest interest rate you can find, and then transfer £50 every money into the help to save account.

On £2400 you'll receive £1200 plus the interest from the savings account whilst the money is waiting to be transferred.

If you have to draw the money out you'll still get a bonus based on your highest balance.

İ've just looked it up and I'm not eligible for help to save. Plus I don't want easy access to my money, I want really hard access to my money to stop me spending it.
Thanks for the tip though.

That is really helpful, thank you.

Okay thanks, that's really helpful.

I quite like Atom, dead easy to open the account and great app.

The old favourite, Premium Bonds? No interest but if you win a prize it's anything from £25 to £1m. Or you could buy one of their 1year Bonds. I think they also do a Green Bond that's worth about 3% in returns.

5.12 up to £5000 with Barclays blue reward account holders