Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm in the fortunate position of having built up a large amount of savings, and I'm not sure what to do with it.
I could quit work or work less, but (a) work is my downtime, during which I recover from social activities (I'm a self-employed content creator) and (b) I want to maintain a decent income on my last three years' tax returns in case I ever have to move home and pass a rental check.
Buying a home is an obvious answer, but I've looked into this and very quickly became burned out by the social requirements of engaging with agents etc and the stress of making decisions. I'm currently renting a flat and getting quite a good deal on it (no rent increase in the last nine years).
I hate travel as I dislike being in unfamiliar places.
I do my own haircuts, etc, not because I can't afford to the financial cost of having it done professionally, but because the spoon requirement of interacting with the service provider is too high. I can't do phone calls as auditory processing disorder means I don't understand what the person on the other end of the phone is saying, which puts a hard barrier in the way of using many services.
I'm on a fixed daily diet to manage a medical condition. I don't drink.
I like reading but prefer to get books from the library as the need to return them by a deadline ensures I'll be motivated to read them.
I enjoy running and hiking, but beyond the cost of the bus fare to get to my favourite routes and occasional gear replacements, this is free.
I take dance classes but from experience, I lose interest if I spend too much time on this hobby. In the past I tried going to weekend events but found them too exhausting.
I enjoy doing online courses and am considering going back into education in a more formal way, but again I worry the social requirements will be overwhelming. Also, my biggest obstacle to completing the courses I'm already taking is lack of energy/time.
I've spent thousands on counselling, coaching, etc, none of which has been helpful and some of which has been actively harmful to me. My mental health has improved dramatically since I stopped doing all this.
I could pay to get a faster autism diagnosis, but I think I'm already near the top of the NHS waiting list.
I dislike having a lot of stuff/clutter, and find shopping a hassle. Figuring out how to accept deliveries is even worse than doing it in person.
I worry about investing/locking away money in case it becomes inaccessible (phone call difficulties as well as the usual risk of losing money on investments).
In summary, I'm pretty happy with my life, don't particularly want to change anything, and definitely don't want to add anything into it that's going to cause me hassle. But I'm stressed about having money sitting there gradually getting eaten by inflation and feel I should do something with it.
I've already made small changes, such as buying things because I feel like it and not spending too long researching the options to ensure I get the best deal, and being more generous towards friends in terms of buying drinks etc.
What do you spend money on that improves your life? Or how do you invest/use it to give you a feeling of security?
Oh that sounds good. I like standardised processes.
Apartment block. We have lockable postboxes which work wonderfully for anything delivered by royal mail. Every other courier can't access the room the boxes are in, so you have to talk to them over the phone (which I can't do) to work out which entrance they are at and run down there before they give up and leave. The management company has no interest in resolving the situation. I try to only buy from sellers that use royal mail, but sometimes they say they use RM and then it turns out they're actually using someone else. I also buy from Amazon who can deliver a subset of their products to lockers about half a mile away.
Where do you start with getting a virtual assistant?
Where do you get 12%?
With property my primary motivation was to have somewhere I will definitely be allowed to live for the rest of my life, rather than as an investment.
MrSolo said:Figuring out how to accept deliveries is even worse than doing it in person.
Do you live in an apartment block or a house? If it is apartments then you could ask the managing company if they could install lockable pidgeon holes big enough for the things you are likely to want, You may need to pay towards these.
This means a delivery could go straight into the unit which then closes and locks. You come to the unit later and pick it up without having to interact with anyone - it will only work for things that don't requre a signature I guess.
MrSolo said:I worry about investing/locking away money in case it becomes inaccessible
For this I would open accounts with a number of banks who have good savings options, invest it across a range to diversify your risk and keep track of when the introductory offers expire so you can move the money to other accounts if they are better.
As for the general social interaction issue for utilities, estate agents etc, have you considered using a virtual personal assistant?
They are fairly easy to find on a search and they can be hired for either piece work or a set number of hours to perform these tasks for you. You would then have one well mannered and capable person chase down the things you need, have the difficult conversations and make appointments for things like property viewings for you.
Property is looking like a poor investment over the next year so I would be reluctant to buy just yet. There seem to be a lot of private landlords selling up due to the government taxing them heavily and making their lives difficult, so there may be a glut of property with little appetite and high interest rates - a perfect storm for a market cottection.
My opinion is that cash is king for now in spite of rising rent prices.
I've cashed out of the UK at the moment having made a lot during the last 6 years from propery renovations and am now doing this in Brazil that is not having anything like the issues that afflict the UK. In a few years I will consider reversing this but for now I get 12% a year interest from cash in the bank so most of my money is sitting there waiting for the UK market to bounce back.
My partner and I bought a new build. It was a bit easier than buying an existing house would have been, mostly because we didn't have to deal with anyone except the developer and our solicitor, and we'd been renting so we didn't have a house of our own to sell. I wouldn't say it was more automated as such, but the fact that the developers were selling lots of houses meant they had a standardised process that was fairly easy to navigate.
I wondered about new builds, as some of the process seems a little more automated (buying from the developer instead of from an individual)? But I'm not sure as I don't know anyone who has bought one.
Sorry to hear that counselling and coaching did not help. That's quite discouraging, since I am thinking on that road myself.
The only advice I can give you is to avoid investing. With your lack of knowledge and of social skills, you are 100% likely to be scammed. Try to invest in your physical health: better care than the pathetic NHS standard, better food, a home gym and so on.
Yeah I looked at lots of savings accounts and none of their returns were anything like as good as the premium bonds. It's also exciting to check every month to see if/what you've won.
Good shout on the pet, its not fair to have one if you don't think you can look after it.
The only property hunter I have engaged is the type you mention - looking after high net worth individuals. I don't know if there is the same service for just regular people? You can of course do a lot of the property hunting online but eventually you would have to see/speak to someone I guess.
I'll keep thinking.
Ah, stationery is always handy, and satisfying to use. That's a good idea.
About to go subscribe to my favourite podcast - been meaning to do that for a while.
Thanks. I have a pension and have just doubled my monthly contribution, so that's one thing sorted. I'll look into bonds. I do move stuff around savings accounts to try to get good interest rates, but bonds might be better.
My tenancy agreement doesn't allow pets, and to be honest I don't think I'd be a very good companion, as I probably wouldn't take them to the vet.
Do you know of any property hunter services? I researched them a year or two ago but couldn't find any in my area / budget range. They seemed to all be about hunting out mansions for the super rich. I just want to hand over money and get a 1-bed flat without all the hassle that usually comes with it.
I had a similar question once. One good bit of advice I was given by my family's financial advisor was to go to the NS&I website and put the max amount into private bonds (50K). Every month there is a lottery and you (more often than not) win money. Sometimes £25, sometimes £200 but you can win thousands or even a million. This money isn't locked away or at risk, you can get it out any time at exactly the same value as you put in.
Another thing you could do is put a lump sum into your pension pot, I think you can put in £40k a year. This will set you up nicely in future. I use an app called PensionBee - like with the above you don't have to deal with any people, it's all online.
Something I would do if I had more money is get a pet. I would love to have a dog as a companion but they are expensive and can come with unexpected food and medical bills which I would find hard to accommodate on a tight budget. So maybe think about getting a pet?
Lastly, like you said, property would be the best thing for it, but appreciate your reasons for not wanting to get involved in that. If you have really a lot of money you could engage a property hunter for you who takes all the work out of it then you only have to deal with 1 person and that can typically be done via email, so not using up too many spoons.
This was a fun question to answer, thanks for posting it. I am off to imagine what to do with my future imaginary money :)
True, I could increase donations to charities. There are certainly patreon accounts I've been meaning to subscribe to for quite a while now without getting around to it.
If the money is really burning a hole in your pocket but you can't think of a way to spend it on yourself that'd make you feel better, have you considered giving some to charities? You could make a huge difference to someone else who's really struggling.
I have the same issue- my job is a solitary one that I do from home so it's not burning me out like in-office work did, but between chronic illness and being autistic I don't have much to buy once all my bills are paid! There are a couple of things that I do spend money on though:
LIke you I also love to learn and find time/energy constraints to be the biggest barrier to doing more formal study. I'm thinking of taking an 'access to humanities and arts' course through the Open University though; there's no in-person component, no uni social life to deal with, and the course is both fewer hours per week *and* more structured than a typical higher education course would be.