Investments & Savings

Reviewing investments and savings across the whole market place to arrange the best deals for you

Investing is for the longer term, if you’re willing to tie up your money and take some risk to get a better return balancing the risk of a short-term loss against the chance of a long-term gain. To overcome inflation you may want to consider investing the bulk of your money over the longer term.

Saving tends to be for short-term goals or when you need to get at your money quickly (for example, a holiday, birthdays, Christmas or an emergency such as replacing a household item). There is the risk that your savings might not keep pace with inflation and so losing value in real terms.

Before you start investing or saving think about your financial goals and timescales as these will determine how much you need to invest or save. Also you may want to consider the following:-

• Pay off any expensive debts – such as credit cards.
• Have an ‘emergency fund’ of money that’s easy to get hold of, which would last you at least three months if you lost your income suddenly.

Investing for the longer term
Putting money away for the longer term usually means investing your money in plans or funds based on the stockmarket. When investing, you take calculated risks to increase your chance of getting higher returns on your money, especially over the longer term (money you can afford to invest for five years or more). The important thing to remember is that, even if your investment goes down, you will only have made a loss if you cash it in at that time; it is not a real loss until you sell. The upside is that you often get a greater return than you would with savings, giving you better protection against inflation over the long term.

Saving for the short term
For short-term savings, you usually put your money into an account where it earns interest without the risk of losing any of it (short of a bank, credit union or building society collapse). You can usually get your money out immediately or after a notice period, which could be 30, 60 or 90 days.

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