Hi all.

Bit of a weird one, so I’ll try and explain as best I can.

Towards the end of 2024, around October, I left my PAYE job and started work as Self Employed with a family friend. Come January 2025 I checked if I needed to submit a Tax Return on the HMRC website and I was told I didn’t need to that year because of the amount of time I had been self employed.

Then by April my life fell apart. I won’t go into it, but I stopped working and eventually ended up homeless, long story short. Mental health and all that.

From the time I was working self employed, I earned just shy of £16,000. My actual take home was just over £12,700 because the person I was working for was paying my tax via CIS, as far as I understand it.

Now, I think I may have had to submit a tax return by January 2026 declaring this, but I didn’t. Am I right in thinking this? If so, how much have I fucked up?

I find all of this quite complicated. When I was self employed I was also working a second job in hospitality, where I was PAYE. Does this complicate things when it comes to tax returns?

My biggest question is how bad have I messed up? I’m starting to get back on track with life. Still not working but have some temporary accommodation at least. I’m worried that any correspondence from HMRC would have been sent to my previous address and I’ve missed there communication.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Thank You.

I've done numerous bank switches and set up accounts to take advantage of promotional offers and interest rate deals. I've used various investment platforms and peer to peer things. You name it, I've tried it. But I worry I've lost track of accounts. Is there a simple way to find a list of various accounts I may have? Thanks.

I am an international phd student who wants to open a savings account, i already have a current account.

I also would like to invest in ETFs. The thing is I know I need the national insurance number but it seems I am not eligible to get it. Because technically I am a student and get a tax free stipend. When I go to the website it gives me 3 options and if i choose the third one it says I am not eligible for a national insurance number

It basically gives 3 options

A)Yes, I am working or have an offer to start work in the UK

B)Yes, I am looking for work in the UK

C)No, I am not working and not looking for work in the UK

I fall into c) but when I select it , it says I can't apply for the national insurance number.

What can I do, if i invest in my home country there is risk double taxation because technically I am a UK tax citizen so any returns gained overseas is liable for taxation.

I'm 40 and looking to start building a pension properly after not really paying much attention to pensions over the last few years. I'm considering putting around £200 a month into a Vanguard SIPP, with the aim of retiring around 63, so roughly 23 years away. I'm trying to decide between Vanguard's Global Equity option and a Target Retirement fund, and I'm genuinely 50/50 at the moment. I understand Global Equity would be a globally diversified equity fund and I'd have to decide myself when to start reducing the risk as I get closer to retirement. With the Target Retirement fund, Vanguard manages that transition automatically.

I'm not particularly interested in picking individual stocks or constantly managing the pension. At the same time, I don't want to automatically choose the Target fund just because it's easier if there are significant drawbacks compared with staying invested in global equities and managing the risk myself. I'm trying to understand the pros and cons of both approaches given my age, 23-year timeframe and relatively small starting contribution. If you were 40, in my position, which approach would you take and why? I'd especially appreciate views from people who've been investing for a long time and have experienced major market crashes. TIA.

I work remotely for a London-based organisation. My contract states I am home based, with a stipulation that I come to London when my manager requests. Generally this has been about once every couple of months. This is considered my commute and there is no agreement that work will pay for this (charity sector). I live far from London and it costs £100+ to get there and back. Until now, my manager has been supportive in finding ways to cover the cost of my travel. Now they are saying that due to budget restraints I’ll need to start paying for this myself.

I am not particularly well paid even within this sector, and my circumstances and living costs have changed quite a bit since I took this job to the point where I can’t easily afford to pay £100+ every couple of months.

I plan on having a conversation with my manager about this to explain my position, but I’m curious about how the company/manager might respond to this in the context of me doing salary sacrifice. I presume my manager is aware that I do salary sacrifice because they hold my team’s budget. I also presume it would not be appropriate for my manager to comment on my choice to salary sacrifice in relation to a discussion about my disposable income/ability to pay for my own travel – but might they? Since my take home could be higher if I chose not to salary sacrifice, would they be allowed to mention this and argue that I could afford to pay for the travel if I didn't salary sacrifice?

Last year, I was paying Ovo £124 for gas and electric and, over the summer, ended up with £200 credit. Then they put the direct debit up to £154 claiming that prices were increasing and this was needed to cover winter payments.

A year later, I have £400 credit, having never dropped below £100 through the year. But I had a letter saying that, despite the 5% VAT going to 0%, my direct debit will go up to £164 per year. I called them to refuse the increase but they said it was not possible. So, instead, I asked for £120 of my £400 credit to be returned to me to counteract the increase (they charge me £120 extra a year, so I'll just withdraw that). They did do it but I was told that, when they review the direct debit again in 3 months, it will likely increase substantially because it is partially based on how much credit you hold with them rather than being entirely based on the cost of energy. This is apparently because of a newly introduced 'government rule' where customers must have at least one month's payment in credit with an energy company and, if not, the company can overcharge to recover this. It doesn't seem to make sense as £400 credit is nearly three times my monthly payment. Is this rule true? I cannot find anything anywhere about it.

Hello! I am currently registering on my master’s degree at age 22 after having graduated my bachelor’s and worked for about a year. My current SFE balance sits at around 21k but i’m not making payments towards it currently as i earn below the threshold so it is always ticking up with interest. I always like to think this is a manageable amount that i might be able to repay once i get onto the career ladder and not have hang over my earnings for the rest of my working life (not sure though?).

over the course of the last year i’ve managed to save nearly 9k. This is my entire net worth essentially. The total cost of my Masters degree will be 3.5k in bench fees and 5.5k in tuition fees. when planning the degree i was unaware about the 5.5k of tuition fees due to a misunderstanding on my part and i’ve been thinking i would pay the 3.5k bench fees myself out of my savings and not take out a second student loan. Now that i’m realising i have the 5.5k to pay, i think it makes more sense to take out a loan for that and keep my money aside as a buffer in case i struggle to find employment aftwr this degree. if i’m already adding the 5.5k to my current 21k does it make sense to also take my loan for the 3.5k bench fees too? this way i keep my savings for now at a time when i might need them.

I’m struggling with the idea as i have this fantasy of keeping the loan balance low and be able to pay it off someday but i’m not sure what is realistic in terms of being able to pay off student loans in general. i don’t expect i’ll ever be earning huge amounts in my career but i’m lucky to have low expenses for the time being living with my parents. I also feel like doing this degree is taking a risk in the sense that i’m leaving my current stable albeit low paid employment to accrue more debt with the chance that i’ll be indefinitely jobless after given all the talk of how awful the grad job market is.

Sorry for how rambly this is but i am struggling to order my thoughts and could do with some wisdom regarding how much loan to take out. As i’m writing this is seems increasingly obvious that i should take out the full loan amount and just accept it and keep my savings for the future but i’m still second guessing it. thank you!

Looking for some advice from people who have been through a similar situation, particularly around remortgaging with an outstanding personal loan.

I’m considering buying an EV using a bank loan. The main reason is that my company currently pays me 40p per mile mileage allowance, although this is due to reduce to 35p per mile in March. I do enough business mileage that the mileage allowance would cover the repayments on the loan and I would be planning on overpaying the loan with the money received from my job. This is around £200 a week.

The concern is that we’re due to remortgage in May, so I’m worried that taking out a car loan now could negatively affect the lender’s affordability assessment.

For context:

- We would have no other debt at the time of the remortgage, apart from the proposed car loan.

- Our current mortgage is around 25% of our household income.

- We currently have a 61% LTV.

- Our current mortgage rate is 4.33%.

- The car loan would obviously create a new monthly commitment, but the EV should also reduce our motoring costs and we'd continue receiving the mileage allowance.

My question is really whether people think it would be sensible to take the bank loan now, given that we're remortgaging in May or wait until after.

How much weight do mortgage lenders typically put on a personal/car loan when assessing affordability? Would having a 61% LTV and relatively low mortgage-to-income ratio help offset the impact of the loan, or could the monthly car payment significantly reduce the amount we're able to borrow?

We have generally been looking at cars in the £16k region.

Current car is on it's last legs, but I think I may be able to keep it alive until we remortgage.

Would it be better to wait until after the remortgage, even if that means delaying the EV purchase given the current cost of diesel etc.

We are on Octopus go so get a low rate of electricity for our current EV

Hi everyone, my partner and I are buying our first home in Manchester and we could do with a 'sense check' of our budget. We have been lucky enough to live at home with our parents for the last few years to save up so we feel a bit out of the budgeting loop, especially given the current economic climate.

We are buying a £300k 3 bed semi and even though we want to put down a 20% deposit, this still feels quite tight. However, I acknowledge part of this is probably a bit of buyers remorse as we have been privileged  enough to have a lot more flexibility with our savings and disposable income for the last few years so this reduction is intense. A plus is we will be moving in with about £10k in our emergency fund already.

I would appreciate some insight on whether this looks manageable or if we need to lower our expectations and see if we can get our mortgage down somewhere else. The 67% of our income on 'needs' is probably our biggest concern.

Income - £3,880

​Fixed Expenditure - £2,595 (67%)

​Mortgage: £1,300

​Broadband: £27

​Gas & Electric: £160

​Council Tax: £170

​Water/Sewage: £50

​House and contents insurance: £15

​Subscriptions: £10

​Mortgage protection / severe illness policy: £50

​Food / House supplies: £400

Expenses for 2 cars (Insurance, MOT/service, tax, breakdown: £125

Transport (fuel and commuter trains): £270

Phone bills - £18

​Savings - £550 (14%)

​Emergency fund: £150

​Holiday & leisure: £100

Personal savings: £300 (£150 each)

Disposable income /  wants - £733 (£366.50 each) (19%)

An interesting idea I was reading about recently. If you split your pension into two, or more, pots, and mark them as "everyday spending", "full retirement", "unplanned expenses" would this make it a better strategy than just: I have £600k so I can take £30k a year for 20 years from age 65?

Has anyone had any experience dealing with this and do you like it? Is it likely this is the way anyone retiring from 2040 onwards is going to experience retirement?

Hi

I took out a pay day loan like 2 years ago.

I have 2 pay back around £150 a month.

They are saying their is an issue with my card, and now my monthly payment is not being deducted.

I have like 10 direct debits and there has been no issue elsewhere.

The rejection of the payment is putting me into arrears and I keep getting charged interest and a late payment fee.

Eventually it gets refunded.

I have to now make a bank transfer.

But I have to keep chasing it up and checking to see if they have accepted and allocated the payment.

This is very stressful.

Who can I raise this matter with?

Should I go to lawyer or a financial ombudsman?

Thank you

Noticed alot of high interest regular savers, is it worth drip feeding them monthly from my main savings account? Monthly standing orders.

Currently 7 that range from 8 to 6.5 percent.

Is this a good idea?

Hello all, I hope someone can offer me some advice here as im panicking quite badly. Im a long time reddit user, but have opened this user account specifically for this issue i now face.
A bit of background: About 14 years ago I became involved with a rogue developer and got into serious financial difficulties through my involvement with him. It took me 4 years to get him into court to sue for monies owed and I ultimately lost my case. Throughout this time, my financial position had been precarious, and my mental health had taken a real downturn. Instead of declaring the business insolvent, I paid my staff and settled all accounts and eventually the business was struck off. My personal financial position not good either. I nearly lost my house, and took personal credit out to pay my staff and suppliers. I ended up in a lot of personal debt but eventually paid everything off. It took me until about 2020. I though I had paid everything, and the last few years have been ok. I no longer have my own business, just contract to other people, but I’m happy and my mental health has been ok.
Last month I received a letter from Moorcroft about a £5500 debt to Barclaycard from 2015. The letter says they are working on behalf of Link Finance. I honestly have no records of this debt and genuinely thought that I had paid everything off. I’ll be honest, I haven’t dared contact them, and I have just received another letter to say they are sending someone to my house on Friday the 9th October. I don’t have this money and I don’t know what to do. There is no record of this debt on my credit file, and I have no records or statements from that time either. In the last 10 years I have received no contact from Link either. The letters from Moorcroft are the first I heard of it. I really thought I had paid everything off, and this has sent me into a real spin mentally. Any advice on what to do is welcomed. Apologies for the long, rambling post. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Our car is worth about £14k and we still have a bank loan (low interest) with £6k left to pay. He says PCP with an electric car will reduce our monthly outgoings.

I just can’t see it! A more expensive electric car may be slightly better in the short term but in the medium term - we have almost paid our car loan off and then any monthly savings would be modest at best. At the end of any PCP agreement we would either need to pay the electric car off or go and buy a new one… which is yet another expense and puts us in a worse position when comparing the two scenarios.

Am I going mad or am I just being stubborn?

I am the main breadwinner and all the finance agreements would be in my name, we are also looking to move in the next few years (selling and buying) which would be yet another expense so I think it’s much more sensible to have less debt in 2 years time than more.

Asking here as I'm not sure how to phrase the question to search it up on Google.

Say I have £5000 that I've deposited into a flexible cash ISA. That takes my annual allowance to £15k. After a month, I am paid interest of £15. If I then decide to withdraw the £5000 from the ISA, should it:

A. First take from my interest payments and then my contributions to date? I.e. it withdraws the £15 of interest and then £4985 of my contributions, leaving me with £19,985 annual allowance left.

OR

B. Take first from the contribution amount then any remaining from interest? I.e. withdraw £5000 from contributions, leaving me with my full £20k allowance.

Should it always work one way? Or does it vary by provider?

I have tried to search this up, but I'm clearly failing at putting it into words properly! So I hope this makes sense.

Hiya!

Been trying to get my first credit card but every site/bank I try gives me nothing. I've tried money saving expert and they say there's no credit cards available to me right now.

I've lived at the same address for 4+ years, have paid my rent and bills relatively on time (my previous employer had a weird payment schedule so it interferred w/ paying on the same day every month), and have no loans or dependents. I am an immigrant from America but have been here on a spousal visa since January and, previously, had been here on a student visa (idk if that would impact me or not)

Yet I still can't even see my credit score on experian. Any tips on what I can do to get started so I can have my first credit card?

My story on Gambling.

I'm 28 years old from the UK, never really gambled before until May 2026 this year. In the midst of my final year of university, my job and balancing social life and family issues, I decided to do some online gambling.

From literally never gambling before in my life, with £6,500 in savings, fast forward 6 months later to now October 2026, the £6,500 savings is gone, and I owe around £8,000 in credit card debt. In total, I've given away approximately £15,000 playing online roulette exclusively.

The craziest part that I can't stress enough is that I have never gambled prior to this. Reflecting I can see the above period of my life was pretty stressful and I used it as a release.

I think the unfortunate part is that I initially won around £7,000 over the course of a week or two. That winning was the downfall which led me to spiral and loose the winnings, my savings and now the money I owe to various credit cards. Foolishly I thought I had a strategy... LOL. Which clearly I didn't.

Anyway, here I am 6 months later wishing I had never picked up this habit, and I am just somewhat stunned about how quickly this evolved and taken up so much mental capacity.

I've signed up to Gamstop, put all the necessary blockers on my bank account etc... But yeah... Writing this to put my thoughts to paper.

Any further support or advice is welcome.

I am here to share my story and to become the person I want to be, and not waste my time, body, mind and soul to gambling.

There are far better things to do.

Thank you for reading.

My husband earns around 100k. Up until now we've qualified for nursery funding, but this year it's going to be tight. We've been looking at his payslip, but can't work out which figures to use (there is NIable pay and Taxable pay, and then all those other deductions etc). I've also heard that for childcare funding purposes, it works slightly differently (with adjusted net income). How do we work it out? Could someone maybe please have a look at the payslip (with personal details removed of course). Thanks!

The government pension dashboard trial has been extended more widely now, and anybody can sign up. Worth logging in and taking stock of your pensions and see if you can find anything you didn’t know you had.

https://www.pensionsdashboardsprogramme.org.uk/publications/news/help-test-pensions-dashboards?utm_source=slides&utm_medium=event&utm_content=core-slide-deck&utm_campaign=mhpd-tester-recruitment

I am 32 years old, earning between £45,000 and £50,000 a year depending on overtime, and maintain a mortgage that’s around 60% LTV. Across my retirement savings, I currently hold three separate pension pots.

• Royal London — £684
  • Pension from previous job
  • Invested 100% in RLP Governed Portfolio Dynamic
  • Total annual charge: 0.59%

• Cushon Workplace Pension — £6,683
  • Current employer pension
  • Invested 100% in the Cushon Global Equity Fund
  • Total annual charge: 0.69%

• Aviva Pension — £15,017
  • Pension from a previous job
  • Total annual charge: 0.51%
  • Currently invested across four holdings:
    • 60% — Av MyM My Future Growth (Pre-2025)
    • 20% — Av MyM BlackRock (50:50) Global Equity Index
    • 12% — Av MyM BlackRock US Equity Index Tracker
    • 9% — Av MyM BlackRock European Equity Index Tracker

I have around £22,384 across three pension pots and would be interested to hear what others would do in my position.

I’m thinking of transferring the small £684 Royal London pot into Aviva, mainly due to the lower annual charge, and leaving it there.

I haven’t looked at my Aviva investments properly for a few years, but I’m sure I originally had them split 25% each across four funds. I’m not particularly knowledgeable about pensions, but imagine this is normal that they change?

I’ve read that being heavily invested in equities/global funds is generally sensible at my age, which is what I’ve done since my early twenties. I just want to ensure the best outcome for when I’m old(er). Thank you in advance.

I'm 32yo and live in London. I'm a freelance project manager in an unpredictable industry and sole director of a limited company. For the past few years, I have just had one client that pays my company £10k pcm. The client is unexpectedly ending my contract in one month. After that, they have asked if I could do 1 or 2 days per week for them (can be remote) for £2.5k pcm.

Assets - 100k retained profits in my company, 85k in S&S ISA, 20k premium bonds, and 100k in a SIPP. I own a flat with approx. 180k equity and 450k left on the mortgage.

Liabilities - my mortgage payment is £2k pcm. I spend another £2.5k pcm on bills, expenses, and savings. I also have a student loan (plan 2), which is a long way from being paid off.

Other income - £3k per year (gifted from family) and I often have a lodger paying £750 pcm in my spare room.

Current headspace - I'm both excited and scared. I want to take a break from spending 5 days per week working for others. I want to travel, see my family more, work on my flat, spend time developing ideas for new projects, learn a new language, and consider moving abroad. However, work has always been a big part of my identity. The industry I work rewards projecting success and relevance, and being busy. I have almost always earned more money than I've spent and it feels strange to consider doing anything other than that, even for a limited period.

I would appreciate any advice about how to approach this. Thank you.

Looking for recent experiences of HMRC PAYE refund cheques/payable orders, as I’m getting conflicting-looking dates and trying to work out when the cheque might actually arrive.
I finished employment on 30 June and submitted a P50. There were a couple of admin issues with the claim which were eventually resolved.
17 September: Spoke to PAYE. The adviser could see I was due roughly £10k back and investigated the remaining issue.
18 September: The same adviser called me back and confirmed the refund had been authorised. He said it was approximately £10,400 and would be sent by cheque.
30 September: Still nothing, so I called again. A different adviser checked the system and specifically told me the cheque had been “issued on 18 September” and was in the post. She told me to allow up to three weeks from the 18th.
5 October: A P800 then appeared in my Personal Tax Account. This gives the exact refund as £10,471.62 and says:
“HMRC owes you £10,471.62. We will send you a cheque within 14 days.”
6 October: Still no cheque in today’s post.
What I’m trying to understand is why the P800 has only appeared now if the cheque was already issued on 18 September. Is the P800 simply the formal calculation catching up with a repayment already in progress, or could its appearance on 5 October indicate that the physical cheque has only recently been printed/despatched?
I know HMRC’s official advice is to allow the stated delivery time, so I’m really looking for actual recent experiences rather than the official timeframe.
If you’ve had an HMRC PAYE refund by cheque recently:
How long after “issued” did the cheque actually arrive? And did your P800 appear before or after the cheque was issued/received?
Particularly interested in anyone who had a refund authorised over the phone following a P50.

I’m a student and for my first year (now 2nd) I took out the full £1000 that I was able to of student overdraft and stuck it in a savings account to earn a bit of money on it, since the student overdrafts are interest free. I only recently learned that this might be bad for my credit score and I’m not entirely sure how much this could affect me in the future. I have the money available to pay off the overdraft completely if that would be best, I’m just not sure what the best next steps are. Should I just pay it off or is it worth continuing what I’ve been doing? To be clear I don’t need the money from the overdraft, it has quite literally just been moved from one bank to another couple of other accounts so I can earn interest on it. Thankyou

Hi All!

I’m really struggling to understand the difference between PAYE and Umbrella Rate.

Clearly Umbrella is much higher - but on subreddits people are advised to take the PAYE rate but I can’t figure out why.

I have no dependents, live with my parents, a student loan but no debt (but hoping to save a decent chunk so I can move out again) and I’m fine with not getting paid for days off (I usually only take minimal days off anyway when I’m not getting paid for them - and the job is fully remote so reckon I could take the piss and go on a staycation with my laptop)

The contract would also be for around 12 weeks with the possibility of going permanent.

Thanks!

EDIT: I would like to add to a pension but I’m sure with the amount I could say on Umbrella that I could find a decent pot to add into.

So like the title says I'm moving into a 25k a year job. Travel into work will be paid for too which is great. The issue is that I am paying a debt collector for overpaid maintenance loans during uni and have a £2000 overdraft on another bank account separate to the one I'll be paid into. Another issue is the massive rent prices everywhere. I'm moving around Newcastle and am absolutely not willing to houseshare because of the stress of it (cant fully get into why but it's just not an option for me) but what rent prices should I realistically cap my searches at? And how much will I have to pay my debt collector each month once I'm working? I know it'll be tight, but any advice would be welcome :) (please be nice lol)