I’ve got a few quid that I need to make a few quid more out of…I’ve maxed out my ISA with what I could for this year, but have another £4k-ish I need to work for me (sorry, naff saying)

I’m not a rich man,employed, avg income but more importantly engaged & trying to get enough for a large enough deposit to provide future Mrs Dribbling with a decent house, at a decent mortgage rate, so she can spend her days decorating and brnging up little dribbles, so very important I do the right thing, responsible, but need to take some calculate risk obviously to make a return…Savings rates at best are basically 2.5% net, which is hopeless… I expect to only want to invest this money for a max of 12 months….

Thought about shares etc, don’t mind putting in my own time (research, physical time etc), but wondered if anyone had any ideas of how to use (some) money to make money?..

Thanks, Rich

tbh Get paid more, spend less.

Saving barely impacts the cost of inflation (spending and asset) – never worked for me… And even when you’ve a decent amount the banks and the like just charge the earth whether you make a return or not.

Not many people would advise investing in shares for a 12 month period. I’m one of them.

Agreed, good advice – been in thrift mode for some time, haven’t got a car now for first time in 15years.

That’s it though; savings will do nothing for me – so looking for ideas of what would.

Thought about shares etc, don’t mind putting in my own time (research, physical time etc), but wondered if anyone had any ideas of how to use (some) money to make money?..

you might be better off leaving the money alone and using that time to make some money, or save some money. second job, sell some stuff etc etc.

Thanks King, was thinking that about shares – no knowldge of any particular market either which doesn’t help.

Was thiking something a little radical, but don’t know what!

I had an email from the Prince of Nigera the other day which seemed promising 🙂

A couple of months ago you could have got odds of 30:1 on on Celtic winning the league in scotland. that’d have been 3.3% which is better than a savings rate (not now it’s 50:1 on).

Premium bonds?

Cheers Tom, good advice again; flogged the DSLR & other prized posessions – Only item of value left is the bike, and that’s not happening! Other job suggestion wouldn’t work due to tax; already looked into that.

As in post, I don’t have a problem using my time; but how to make money using the cash I have, which would return better than £100 over a year!

zopa? probably a bit longer than 12 months though TBH

30-1 = 3.3%? – Do you work for Barclays? 🙂

In other words, if you can’t afford to remain invested for a minimum of three years whatever markets throw at you in the meantime, it would be wise to keep away from shares and share-based funds altogether.  On a brighter note, buyers at today’s low prices could pocket bargains for the future.

From here

I faced a similar situation 18 months or so back, deposit money sat around not doing anything. In hindsight could have made *alot* on various stocks I was following, but the money was for a house, and I couldn’t risk finding the house I wanted and needing to take money out of shares at a loss (as the article says…..markets are very volatile ATM)

Take heart that with stagnant or falling (?) house prices, your deposit isn’t really falling in value, as it would be if you were buying petrol or groceries etc.

Can a family member stick it in an ISA for you?

Maths looks good to me , although there is a chance that they won’t win the league and then your money has turned to nothing .

My short term investments (where I may need to get the money out quickly) are in premium bonds at the moment – you can hold up to £30k and the odds are 24k/1 on winning a prize. So far it’s working out well, I am getting a better return than with any other short term account, the winnings are tax free and the worst that can happen is I end up with the same amount I invested (which may or may not be eroded by inflation)

Or bung it on short odds football bets, but only if you can afford to lose the money.

Bet on lionel messi to score a hatrick this season! I guarantee it!

King – you make some good points thanks; shares is not preferred option by far, too volatile and I’m too ignorant. Interetsing about your similar position; can’t turn to Dad or Missus to use their ISA allowance as they have a close relationship, which is great, but I’m not declaring the recent increase in cash to anyone in order to retain focus on saving every penny – missus will lose the focus, spend more and although I don’t like the secret element, it’s for the greater good, and can’t put Dad in postion of knowing something he can’t talk about. Complicated eh!?

Jeremy – you know I’ve never even thought about that; I’ll get googling straight away!

“Bet on lionel messi to score a hatrick this season! I guarantee it! “

I’d get better odds at the bank! Thanks though 🙂

Ive still got a few k in premium bonds and in 3 years not won a penny

dribbling – Member

30-1 = 3.3%? – Do you work for Barclays?

put £30 bet on, receive £30 stake back plus £1 = £31
£31/£30 = 1.033333333333333333333
= 3.3333333%

i can give you a great price on some magic beans dribbling……….

they may not win the league for several reasons, say football gets banned, ebola wipes out the entire population of Scotland, all the other teams take the huff and their ball and go play by themselves?

Deus, going hugely off-topic, but this could be at the heart of why I’m a terrible gambler, but odds at 30/1, that would equate to £30 for every £1, which equals 3000%?

1/30 on the other hand would return £1 for every £30 stake?

However, I’m interested in the beans. 🙂

which is why i said 30/1 on, not 30/1. s’pose writing 1/30 would have made life easier.

Think my folks have the max in premuim bonds, no big wins but they’re averaging £20 a month this year.
It’s not a good investment per se but you’re not going to lose money (save for inflation) and there’s always a chance of a small win or a very small chance of a big win.

i fear you’re too smart for the beans 😀

Deus, gotcha, told you I was a terrible gambler!

I think this premium bonds business is just the ticket; it’s got the gamble aspect with no risk; opportunity lost is pitiful at current base rate. I was thinking of something leftfield, but I was just grasping at straws.

I’m going to look into this premium bond business more tomorrow, spot on outcome from the post though – I’d never thought of that.

Thanks all.

Premium bonds are a mugs game.Average return just over 1%.My brainy mate Iain suggests.Get a stockbroker(Barclays/Nat West).Invest your money in Rensberg VCT.You could make 10%+.You should perhaps be looking for Capital and income growth.This is the direction i,m tending to move in.I,ve just opened a shares ISA which I view as a 5 to 10 year investment.Have you looked into peer to peer lending online.I,ve invested in Zopa.You could borrow and lend from them helping others and cutting out the banks.Investment monkeys.

You could try becoming a loan shark?

If you want a safe return then it’s the bank, Premium bonds next. After that everything has an increased risk and reward.

Spread across a share portfolio will isolate you from the risk of 1 company going wrong but relies on all the others going right.

The thing is you need the cash available if your house comes up. Find a savings account with a lock in bonus so that you get a better rate if it’s in for the year but you can still withdraw (just losing the bonus)

As said above houses are not going up so your money isn’t shrinking.

Quick savings tip, engaged is as good as married these days – save a fortune skipping the wedding – and the kids too 🙂

Correction Nat West may not deal in such small businesses.

Other job suggestion wouldn’t work due to tax; already looked into that.

How would it not work? Even if you went into a higher tax bracket you’d only be paying higher rate on earnings over the threshold so you’d still be taking home more cash.

The only concern with a second job (say evening delivery driver for Sainsburys home shopping) is that if you injure yourself at work, your part time job will give you sick pay but your full time employer may not as you were working elsewhere.

I’ve maxed out my ISA with what I could for this year, but have another £4k-ish
I’m not a rich man,employed, avg income

Other job suggestion wouldn’t work due to tax

Just as well TJ’s not hear to see that!

but more importantly engaged & trying to get enough for a large enough deposit to provide future Mrs Dribbling with a decent house, at a decent mortgage rate, so she can spend her days decorating and brnging up little dribbles,

but I’m not declaring the recent increase in cash to anyone in order to retain focus on saving every penny – missus will lose the focus, spend more and although I don’t like the secret element, it’s for the greater good,

mmm… do you think this is a good start to a marriage? I don’t know what the stats are but I’d guess a lot of divorces (a very expensive business) are at least in part rooted in a different attitude to money.

Savings rates at best are basically 2.5% net, which is hopeless… I expect to only want to invest this money for a max of 12 months….

so you want short term, low (or preferably no) risk, investment… what do you think a reasonable return would be? Given the economy and lending rates I’m not sure you could ever really expect more with a relatively small sum, over a short period without a significant risk. Afterall if everyone who had surplus cash could grow it significantly with nobody taking a risk the situation would be unsustainable.

If you have not already done so then clear any debts you may have and any future mrs d might have.

Zopa won’t be sensible unless you are planning to leave your money in for at least 2 yrs (its possible to extract sooner – but expect to loose any benefit you have gained). Funding Circle (and possibly Thin Cats*) offer similar services in peer-2-business and do shorter periods), Yes-secure* do short investments but their default rates are possibly not what you want.

If considering one of these P2P lending options for short term investment it is essential you understand that the lending rate and AER are not the same. If you want to have the cash available in 12 months (not still ‘on loan’) you can’t reinvest as the capital and interest are returned. If you understand that, aren’t in a massive rush to get all your 4k lent as quickly as possible, and that defaults are not offset against income for tax purposes, you stand a chance of getting well above 2.5% net with relatively low risk.

* I have never had any dealings with these, and suggest you do appropriate investigation on the legitimacy and accuracy of their claims etc.

Some great idea thanks; didn’t know about this peer to peer lending – nice idea to be able to help others but don’t know how that will work when access neeeded; I will google thanks.

Re: weddings/kids, I receive grief every week because I won’t marry until we’ve got a house; not renting snobbery or anything, but just priorities – can’t face the idea of getting further away from buying a hoouse to fund one massive booze-up. (Ok, I don’t really believe that..) We can get married post-house-trauma. Won’t escape kids, but honetsly though down quite fancy the idea; additional driver for ‘stability’ of home ownership

Think it’ll be in premium bonds; over the period of time I’m looking at (circa 12 months); I’m not losing much by not investing in a savings account (probably £100 ish) – I’ll look into this peer lending too for the rest.

Spooky – thanks; yeah it’s tax bracket, but also I’ve sold the car to cut costs, which means borrowing the missus’ to get there (My usual work pays for hire cars to travel to work)and the general decrease in quality of life for total net gain of about £3 an hour.

Great point on the sick pay, never even occurred to me.

Bit suspicious of zopa and the like, have people on here used them successfully and made money? Do they guarantee the loans?

Some contracts may even stipulate no second job allowed . I know mines does.

Dribling re wedding

I got the ” your scared of commitment thing ” when we were talkin about buyin a house. Soon as i pointed out that in law and money terms the mortgage is probably more of a binding contract than a wedding things were good. doesnt quite have the same symbolism mind you.

Dribbling – good move going for the house before the wedding. You can get married for next to nothing and have the shindig much later. Whether she’ll see it that way is another story.

Between houses I had 30k of Premium Bonds and won £200. Not great but fun being a mug for 18 months : )

In reality Dribbling premium bonds will probably mean the value of your Capital will go down.There is a 3 year fixed postal bond that with the AA that pays 4%.Unfortunately its for 3 years and your a man in a hurry.How about buy an old bike/frame,do it up afnd sell it on at a profit.I think a bit of that goes on in the classifieds section.Good luck Neil

Was thinking something a little radical

£4k on black.

You’d have to be very lucky to get a good return with premium binds. On the plus side, about as safe as investing gets though.

Premium bonds are a mugs game.Average return just over 1%.My brainy mate Iain suggests.Get a stockbroker(Barclays/Nat West).Invest your money in Rensberg VCT.You could make 10%+.You should perhaps be looking for Capital and income growth.This is the direction i,m tending to move in.I,ve just opened a shares ISA which I view as a 5 to 10 year investment.Have you looked into peer to peer lending online.I,ve invested in Zopa.You could borrow and lend from them helping others and cutting out the banks.Investment monkeys.

This is terrible advice and is wholly unsuitable for short term low risk investment, please don’t listen to it.

Reading that back it seems a little harsh 😳 – @monkey I think OP wants low risk ~12/m so that wouldn’t probably be worth his time 🙂

Bit suspicious of zopa and the like, have people on here used them successfully and made money? Do they guarantee the loans?

I’ve been using Zopa on a very small scale (less than £1k). I am signed up to Funding Circle also but have never actually lent any money through them. I started with Zopa in April 2011. My loans are at between 7-10.5% rates* (depending on risk, length, and the market at the time). I have it set up to lend each person a maximum of £10 (minimising my risk from individual bad debtors). I don’t necessarily follow the advice of the experts in Zopa lending (who would advice focussing on very low risk punters because they are least likely to default and with because of the way tax is treated this is better). So far I have not lost any money, but that is good luck. I’ve had one loan completely repaid, all the others are on track. There is a mechanism to get money back early [assuming the loan has not been defaulted on] but I’ve never used it. I am playing with this for long term savings / investment rather than short term stuff. The last time I worked it out I was getting about 8% AER before tax.

*Note this is the rate the person pays, Zopa charge you a small fee, you run the risk of bad debt, and will need to pay tax on the income. This is not the same as AER either as each month the interest and capital is repaid into your Zopa account. This then earns no money until it is re-lent. You can only re-lend that money in chunks of £10, when you have an offer that matches a need in one of the automatic auctions and it will be for another period of ‘at least’ 2 yrs (notwithstanding the ability to get it back early). And borrowers can pay back loans early – which all makes it a bit harder to work out what you might get back.

Neither Zopa nor Funding circle take guarantees on the loan; you reduce exposure by spreading your risk amongst many (vetted and therefore mostly good) borrowers. ThinCats do, but they are bit new to know what happens when it all goes bad, and the guarantees are not met etc.

Update – I blew the lot on a 2012 Epic S-Works Frame & Forks & a massive bag of tyrrel crisps.

Premium bonds seem pretty subjective; but I like the gamble – worst case scenario I’ve lost £100 in interest, slightly more if I go down this P2P lending route, but in the best scenario I wouldn’t need a mortgage!

I’m not sure that the capital would depreciate significantly considering the intended use of it – according to which speculative media/industry ‘expert’, there’s a chance it would increase with further house price depreciation. Of course that’s irrespective of what I do.

It’s premium bonds for £3k and I’ll look into all the other good advice on here thanks of what I can do with the remaining funds. I would do the bike thing, but tech has moved on so much since I was a budding, MBUK reading bike mechanic 20 years ago (i.e stripping and rebuilding my own bike for no good reason other than because I could); I know I’d waste a lot of money by not knowing the current, now-hugely-diverse market – my own bike is a 2004 and that’s full of voodoo technology in my eyes; maybe I could go down the retro route?!

Quilled stem, Altus C10 rear mech & square taper BB anyone?

Thanks for all the effort and careful consideration invested in some of these replies as well; really appreciated.