Some money to invest - never been in this position before - suggestions please

[EastMids2]

Partner and I both sold houses to buy new one together. I now have £30K sitting in current bank account and have no idea what to do with it, but would like it invested "safely" (can't take risks of losing it) for my daughter in about 5 years time when she may need help getting on the property ladder. Any suggestions please?

Premium bonds?

Take a look at an investment website like that of Hargreaves Lansdown (they are the largest in the field). You can choose from a vast range of funds and they provide suggested portfolios depending on how much risk you want to take and there's masses of research on there to guide you.

I started using them around five years ago and I've actually really enjoyed picking and choosing stuff and seeing how it performs. I've made a return of around 8% p.a. on my investments, which has way out-performed interest rates, and that's despite all the economic ups and downs over time.

Do remember that you should view each investment as long term (2 years as a rough minimum), and don't panic and sell the moment something seems to be headed downward.

Make sure that you take advantage of your ISA allowance this year and next year to shelter as much as possible of the return from tax.

Have you heard of the help to buy ISA? You put in a maximum of £12,000 over a few years (three or four, I think) and the government puts in £3,000. It has to be spent on a property in the UK. If she buys with a friend/partner who has saved with a similar ISA, they can claim £3,000 each.

For the first payment you put in £1,000 deposit (max) then each month (including the first month) you can put in a maximum of £200 per month.

Not sure what you should do with the rest, though!

You get a bit of interest with that, too (though not much, unfortunately.)

Here you go - these are their master portfolios which allow you to choose the level of risk you want to take: www.hl.co.uk/funds/help-choosing-funds/master-portfolios A good starting point, although you can obviously change the balance yourself, or replace any component with something you like the look of instead.

Investment is never safe although with a good spread you are unlikely to lose it all.

You can set.up the interest paying bank accounts and get over 3% on it gross. This is ahead of real inflation, which will eat it away in premium bonds unless you get very.lucky.

Excellent suggestions - thank you to everyone. Food for thought and I will definitely be investigating, rather than have it just sit in current account. I feel a little more confident, which is a plus point!