Dividends, interest etc

[BrassicaBabe]

Hi

My investments are splurged over premium bonds, savings accounts, venture capital trusts, shares etc. (pension and ISAs not relevant to this info I think)

At the moment dividends/interest just ends up in various places. Eg premium bonds "wins" bounce into current accounts, vCT dividends get paid into the savings account. They land where they land and kind of get lost or absorbed.

How should I better manage these? (I can track them when tax is relevant). I don't do anything "active" with them. I don't move them all into a single account for example. How should be be managing these "bits and pieces"?

Thanks!

Rather than focussing on the bits and pieces of income from your investments, it sounds like you might benefit from creating a summary of what you have invested where, and all savings and current accounts you hold. Then think about what your financial goals are - are you working, do you need some of your investment income for regular expenses, are you paying a mortgage or saving for a deposit or hoping to fund school fees or children's house deposits, or perhaps you've invested a good inheritance and are hoping to maintain its real value over time?

With that in mind, I'd then look again at what you have where. And I'd include ISA and pension investments in that, as you may be wanting to use existing investments to top up your tax-advantaged investments over time to help your overall returns. Work out whether and how much income you need from your investments, and how you want to access that. If money is hitting your everyday current account at about the rate you need to use it, then I'd leave it doing that. If you are building up savings in a poorly paying account, maybe one month's job could be to change that to a better account and transfer anything that pays into it. Getting control of things little by little should do it. Good luck!

I have a list of savings, a list of shares, a list of pensions and a list of earned income. I use Excel.

At the start of each month I enter balances/values and any interest dividends etc

I've colour cided tax free and taxable separately. So ISA and premium bond income are one colour and taxable another.

At the tax year end I'll sort out what I need for my tax return.

It takes being organised but itsabout all you can do if you move stuff around. Portfolios do end of tax year statements but I don't use a portfolio I move stuff around myself

Do you need the income? If not, get it reinvested, especially premium bonds.

Do you have a blank version of your spreadsheet by any chance? I'm looking for something exactly like this.

@CurlyhairedAssassin

No, I've just adapted it for us. I don't have a template, sadly.