Anyone else get tied in knots by all these "products" ?

I'll have to live until 83 to get my money back janea and I'm not sure that will happen.

You can check online *Tegan2 and put in your holder's number to see if you've won.

www.nsandi.com/prize-checker

Do they inform you if you PB wins? I've had one for many years but never check if it's won anything. I haven't changed my address since I bought it.

That happened to us jalima in the 90s, we realised that we were paying a company that had never advised us and had no connection with the person who had sold us the policy.
Re your AVCs - they are no different from any other pension contributions in that you only get an income from them. Whether that income ever exceeds the capital you paid in over the years, depends on how long you live.
So to work out whether your AVCs have been worthwhile, you have to look at the additional income they provide, against the value of the AVCs you made, and work out the % return.
I’ve made AVCs twice, to increase my state pension and both times its provided a decent return (ie more than a standard annuity) on the investment.

That's interesting janeainsworth,I didn't know that. We haven't used one for years; however, I was very startled to realise that, years after we took out endowments (mortgage and savings), the IFA had gone out of business or retired but his business had been sold on to someone we'd never heard of who was getting a % of our payments for doing precisely nothing as annual statements came from the endowment companies themselves.

I paid into AVCs and will probably not get back all that I paid in.

Luckygirl that sounds like a case of mis-selling.

An IFA advised my newly-widowed father (at the age of 88) to invest in a "product" that did not produce any interest for 3 years and was high risk. No wonder I do not trust them! We would have preferred him to spend the money on wine, women and song and enjoying himself!

At the time I said nothing as I did not want my Dad to feel undermined, but all the family were very cross. It was bad advice and I think my Dad realised this after he had signed on the dotted line. So we were gung-ho about it in front of him.

Jalima Since 2013 IFAs have not been allowed to receive commission on the products they recommend. They have to charge per advice.
Our IFA in fact did recommend a NSANDI product to us, and also that we made a lump sum payment to increase our state pensions, when there was an opportunity to do so a couple of years ago.
That of course was risky because unless we lived at least 7 years we wouldn't get a good return on the capital we paid out. And when we die, the money is lost, unlike with an ISA which can be inherited.

It is in the interests of an IFA to advise you to invest in something other than NSANDI though, because they will get a percentage of your payments - that is how they make their money, unless they charge a fixed-rate fee for each bit of advice.

The main thing to remember when you are older is not to invest in anything that could be risky. If you are younger you would have to estimate what your own attitude to risk is.

Luckygirl I do not trust financial advisors - they advise things which they understand and I do not and that is not comfortable. Life is stressful here and I need no additional stress.
A qualified independent financial advisor is a professional person just like an architect, surveyor, lawyer or doctor and they are regulated as such.
If you were having a house built, or even an extension to the one you own, you'd have to employ an architect and a surveyor, without fully understanding the reasons behind what they were recommending.
The job of a professional is to make their specialised knowledge comprehensible to the lay person so that they can make properly informed decisions.
We have saved £1000s thanks to our IFA.

At school I was. rubbish at maths, but we got a new teacher who explained about Gilts,Bonds, and the vagaries of the stock market.

She opened my eyes.

Trouble is that nowadays the are so many snake oil sellers out there, and has already been said if its too good to be true......... it IS.

I do wonder how clever all the folk in the treasury, budget gurus, etc are.

Next year, I expect all the promises made by this Govt to disappear in to primeval slime.

I too read mainly theW/E financial comments, and dismiss them.

Today I read that Neil Woodford, darling of the pundits , has folk leaving his funds in droves.

Happy investing, or just keeping your fingers crossed.

luckgirl although on the face of it you are tying your money up with N S & I bonds you can get your money out early with some loss of interest. 2.2% is one of the better rates around at the moment if you may need your cash.

Stocks and shares ISAs have done well for us, and the income - usually around 3% - is tax free.

Luckygirl, I am not bestowing praise like an accolade, just agreeing with you. And the advice is DD's not mine, but advice I have found very useful.

DD's advice arose from being sold an endowment policy she didn't fully understand in order to get her first mortgage. Fortunately, she had been sold a product that was not quite what it said it was and she got compensation and by then was able to trade it in and get a repayment mortgage.

The one thing I do say to myself is 'Don't put all your eggs into one basket'.
I know people who did that and lost the lot.

However, after retirement, caution is the best policy.

I am happy to receive M0nica's endorsement - that is the principle on which I work. I do understand about inflation encroaching on this, but interest rates are so low that it is pretty well neither here nor there, unless you wish to take a risk with your money - we are not in a position to take risks.

I know where the money is; I know how much is there without having to engage with spread sheets etc., I know it is safe there; and I have a little frisson at the beginning of every month. Suits me.

I do not trust financial advisors - they advise things which they understand and I do not and that is not comfortable. Life is stressful here and I need no additional stress.

Having said that we did go for the "granny bond" 3 years ago and that has grown nicely, now that the time has come to cash it in. But there is a limit to how much we can tie up.

margrete - it is not that we have not saved - we have. It is just a question of what we do with it.

Nonnie - enjoy your spreadsheets!

There is a price for everything and if your financial comfort zone is limited, the price is low interest rates, but that still works out better than putting your money in good products you do not understand and either discovering that you cannot get the money when you want it because it was a fixed life product, which you hadn't understood, or charged a penalty for early withdrawal, which again, you hadn't understood. Or worst still you had been conned out of your money by a crook.

Save/invest in your comfort zone, if you have a choice of places to go, see which bank/building society offers the best rates, but never buy anything you do not understand, no matter how good the rate

well, I think my prizes have gone somewhere else this month
again

We cashed our ISAs in and bought more Premium Bonds, we bought quite a few when we both retired. We’ve made far more than we were getting interest with the ISAs.

Keeping up with inflation is the problem though - unless you keep swapping savings round from place to place then any savings you have lose value nowadays.

if it looks too good to be true it almost certainly is.
The Technology ISAs did not look too good to be true - they looked like the future, but spectacularly failed to deliver.

I disagree with all of you apart from M0nica.

I've always saved. I was taught to save many many years ago by my very poor family. I was given a few pennies to take to the school savings bank. The school acted as a sub-branch of a main bank. We didn't even know if we'd have a future then - it was 1940!

I may have lost the habit at different times over the years, but I was always glad when I had some savings, not glad when I had none.

I've had ISAs and their forerunners over the last couple of decades. When interest rates went so low I gave up on savings accounts and went to a stocks-and-shares ISA with Hargreaves Lansdown online. I now have almost £20K in savings, from nothing. I'd have had more, but I took some out for different purposes. The bathroom in 2016. My cosmetic surgery a couple of years before that. Have taken out approx £15K but keep adding on a regular basis, and the stock market FTSE does the rest.

I think everyone should learn, at an early age, to save. Years ago in the 60s I came across a newspaper ad for unit trusts with Save & Prosper. Really, the early days of what I do now. £20 a month then and I'd have been wealthy today.

Now, DH and I aren't rich but a long way from being poor. I shouldn't have had years of financial struggle in the 1980s-90s if I'd remembered my early lessons.

How I wish I had read this advice before letting that man mess with mothers money!
Even now I live in fear of another account rearing its ugly head!

I am a radio 4 listener so hear lots of consumer programmes and will add one thing to MOnica's advice: if it looks too good to be true it almost certainly is. So many people are conned because they believe their is an easy way to make money, there isn't.

As a fully qualified economist, I probably understand these things better than many.

However the best financial advise I have ever received came from DD who knows absolutely nothing at all about the subject.

Her advice is: Never save/invest you money in anything you do not fully understand.

In other words, Luckygirl is doing exactly the right thing, she is investing her money in premium bonds, which is something she understands, and not in things she doesn't.

If your financial understanding doesn't rise beyond keeping every penny you possess in your current account or at a stretch a deposit account, then do just that. If you understand more and feel confident investing in stocks and shares then do so, but essentially providing you always stay in your financial comfort zone and you are unlikely to go wrong.

I did once, just once, type in that holder's number and the message popped up "Congratulations, you have won £500". DH thought from my reaction that we were so rich he'd never have to work again.

My DM won £1,000 back in the early 70s, when that was a serious amount of money. Hope springs eternal!

Unless you have a minimum of £20k to invest it is highly unlikely that you'll have a win and with inflation running at nearly 3% your money will be losing value daily if you keep it in Premium Bonds. May I suggest that you take a look at Martin Lewis money website. You can even contact them with your questions if you sign in. I have found it useful over the years for many different queries. At the very least you might just learn a little bit more about the ups and downs of finance. I wish you very good luck.