Practice a little self-care by showing your finances some love with these seven tips…
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1. Review progress on your goals 📝
Did you make some punchy personal finance goals at the start of the year? The best way to stay on top of them is to regularly review your progress. Use our handy Mortgage Calculator to see how much closer you are to your first home, or check if you’re on track to your retirement goals with our Pension Calculator.
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2. Saving for a house? Make use of the LISA bonus 🏡
If you’re saving for your first home, you should be taking advantage of the Moneybox Lifetime ISA bonus. Each tax year, you can save up to £4,000 into your LISA and you’ll get a 25% bonus on all your contributions – that’s up to £1,000 for free every year!
A 25% government penalty applies if you withdraw money from a Lifetime ISA for any reason other than buying your first home (up to £450,000) or for retirement, and you may get back less than you paid into your Lifetime ISA.
Remember: if you opt for a Stocks and Shares Lifetime ISA- rather than a Cash Lifetime ISA- that all investing should be long term (min. 5 years). The value of your investments can go up and down, and you may get back less than you invest.
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3. Link up with your Housemate’s LISA 🗝️
Buying with someone else? You can now track your savings progress together with our brand new feature, Housemates. 🙌
Use Housemates to connect your Lifetime ISA with your buying partner’s and track your combined LISA savings in one place, motivate each other (or compete), and get a clear idea of how close you are to your first home.
It takes two minutes to set up and, since it’s not a joint account, you can unlink at any time. Plus, when you connect before 28 February, you and your housemate could win £100 each! T&Cs apply. Download the app to connect with your Housemate.
The cash prize of £100 will count against your annual Lifetime ISA allowance of £4,000.
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4. Create a budget 👛
Budgeting is a great way to keep track of your finances. If you haven’t had luck with budgeting in the past, it doesn’t mean you’re ‘bad’ at it – you just haven’t found the right method for you! Try out our top simple and detailed budgeting methods for size.
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5. Start investing to beat inflation 📈
Investing your money, for example in a Stocks & Shares ISA, can help offset inflation over the long term and can be a more efficient way to grow your money than in cash savings, in the long term (minimum 5 years). 💰
For example, £1,000 invested in 2013 would have more than doubled over the course of 10 years 🤑 – compared to just £145 of growth if that cash was in a savings account.*
That’s all thanks to the magic of compound interest. And the longer you leave it, the longer your money has to grow – which is why the best time to start investing is today!
You can get started with just £1 using Moneybox, and you can invest your money into the companies you care about.
Explore Moneybox Stocks & Shares ISA
But remember, all investing should be considered long term (at least 5 years until you want to use the money) and you may get back less than you invest.
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6. Review your payments 🧾
Have you ever signed up to a trial and forgotten to cancel it? Or subscribed to an app three years ago that you never actually use anymore? Yep – we’ve been there! It’s a good idea to review your regular payments to check where you can make some money back and put it to better use.
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7. Make sure you’re taking advantage of pension tax relief 💸
When you contribute to a personal pension, you’ll benefit from pension tax relief in the form of 25% government top-ups on any contributions on your earnings (up to £40,000, or £3,600 if that’s higher) every tax year! It’s essentially free money and we’ll claim it for you – so you can watch your money grow without lifting a finger.
Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and is subject to change. As with all investing, the value of your pension can go up and down, and you may get back less than you invest.
Important to know
*Investing returns are based on our Balanced portfolio and include all fees. Where available, returns data for the selected funds have been used. Where the fund has a shortened performance history, we have used the appropriate index to simulate performance. This is the case for the Global Shares fund prior to March 2014 and the Global Property Shares ESG fund prior to October 2014. Cash returns are based on the best available cash interest rates at the beginning of each year. Sources: Morningstar, MSCI, MoneySavingExpert.com
