How to sort out ALL your savings in just an hour on your lunch break

Sorting out your savings is one of those chores that can seem so laborious it’s tempting to put off until another day.

But postponing it could cost you vast sums in lost interest or needless tax bills.

Getting your savings into shape needn’t be a faff. Get a cup of tea, sit down and use these simple steps to get it done on your lunch break.

Rachel Rickard Straus runs through what you need to do here. 

Savings MOT: A quick lunchtime savings sort-out could save you vast sums in lost interest or needless tax bills

Step one: Check what you’ve got

Make a list of any existing savings and investment accounts – both the ordinary and the tax-free Isa ones. Don’t worry if you don’t have any yet, it’s never too late to start saving. 

There are 11 million working-age people in Britain without at least £1,000 in their rainy day savings, according to think tank the Resolution Foundation.

Once you’ve made a list, check if each account is still fit for purpose by looking at what interest you’re earning through logging on to them or contacting your provider.

This step could be uncomfortable. If you’ve not checked an account for a while, there’s a good chance that cash you thought was busily earning interest for you at the rate when it was first opened is actually making a fraction of that.

Some providers play fair and don’t cut your rate while your back is turned. But many offer bonuses that last for a few months after which the rate drops, or put your money into a low-paying account once your fixed-term deal comes to an end.

You need to maximise what you have, ideally by moving to the best rate and a tax-free cash Isa.  

If you do go for one with a bonus, put a note in your diary of the date it expires, so you remember to move your cash to a higher-paying account. 

If you know you’re not organised enough to do that, opt for an account that may not be at the very top of the leaderboard, but is consistently competitive.

> Check the best cash Isa rates in our savings tables.

Step two: Get sheltering

Move whatever additional cash you can spare – up to the current allowance of £20,000 a year – into your Isa to shelter it from the taxman.

Start with a cash Isa rather than a stocks and shares Isa, as it’s a good idea to have about three to six months worth of outgoings stashed away before you start investing.

If you are retired and living on income from your cash and investments, you might want slightly more than that in cash if you can. This is so you don’t have to sell your investments when they’re down, because you need the money.

With cash, you have two options: easy-access or locking it away for longer in a fixed-rate account. There is not an easy answer here, but there is a simple solution.

In essence, to decide between easy-access and a fixed-term bond, you need to know if you can afford to lock your money away for a set time and if it will earn you more interest.

Markets are indicating that the Bank of England base rate will continue to fall this year. This would mean that locking into a deal now would likely earn you more interest than waiting or keeping your money in an easy-access account where rates tend to track the base rate.

However, there is no guarantee that market forecasts are correct – be aware that unexpected shocks can sharply change the direction of interest rates.

The simple solution is to open a selection of Isas. You can open as many as you like, so long as you don’t breach your annual £20,000 Isa allowance. Read our essential Isa guide to learn more about how they work.

So you could lock some of your savings away and keep some to hand in an easy-access account in case you need it or if a rate catches your eye another time.

A year or two can feel like a very long time when deciding whether to commit to not touching your cash. If you’re anything like me, you’ll start imagining all sorts of unlikely eventualities for which you might need to get hold of your money.

But one of the great things about Isas is that they have an inbuilt emergency escape cord to pull if you need to. If you do lock your money away and something unforeseen happens that means you need to access your cash, you can always close the Isa.

You will probably have to pay a fine in the form of lost interest, but at least you have that security.

Fixed-rate bonds outside of an Isa do not have this advantage. You are unlikely to be able to close an account before the end of the term except in extreme circumstances. Always check an account’s terms and conditions.

Step three: Put your CASH to work

Now the tax-free cash is sorted, it’s time to move on to investments. If you have not used a stocks and shares Isa before, it can feel like a huge leap.

After all, with cash you know exactly how much you have in your account at all times – with investments the amount changes from one day to the next.

However, although investment in this way comes with risk, there are ways of keeping it under control and only taking on a level that you are comfortable with.

You can open a stocks and shares Isa on an investment platform – some examples include Hargreaves Lansdown, Dodl, Interactive Investor, Trading 212 and Nutmeg – or through your bank.

If you are a real newbie, you can start small – say with a direct debit of £25 a month – to test the water and build up from there.

There are a number of so-called robo-advisers that will manage your stocks and shares Isa for you, so you don’t have to make a single decision about what to put your money in.

Read This is Money’s excellent guide to picking the best investment platform to suit your needs.

If you’re thinking that this all sounds very well for someone else, but you’d rather stick with the security of cash, thank you very much, remember this.

If you’d put £1,000 in a cash Isa when they were launched in 1999, you would have around £2,016 today, according to calculations by investment platform AJ Bell. 

However, if you’d invested it in a portfolio of global companies, you would have £4,641 today. That is a huge difference of £2,625.

Of course, there are always highs and lows when it comes to investing and there’s no guarantee that you’d make such returns over the next 26 years. But investing does tend to outperform saving over the long term, over almost all time periods.

Safe haven: You can open as many Isas as you like, so long as you don’t breach your annual £20,000 allowance

Step four: Make it work even harder

If you already have a stocks and shares Isa, your next task is to check you’re still getting a good deal.

New players enter the market all the time, offering different fee structures, functionality and support. If you’ve not shopped around for a while, you may be missing out.

Remember that you can have more than one stocks and shares Isa. That means you could always test the water with a new provider and transfer your existing investments later if you get on with it.

Make sure that you ask the new provider to do the transfer rather than doing it yourself to maintain its tax-free wrapper.

It’s also worth having a spring clean of the investments in your portfolio. If you’ve already checked on your cash holdings and made sure you’re on the right platform, you’ve probably run out of time to scrutinise your portfolio as well.

But do it at least a couple times a year just to check your holdings still align with your aims and strategy. go to our Six steps to do an annual health check on your investments for a great step-by-step guide.

Compare the best DIY investing platforms and stocks & shares Isas

Investing online is simple, cheap and can be done from your computer, tablet or phone at a time and place that suits you.

When it comes to choosing a DIY investing platform, stocks & shares Isa or a general investing account, the range of options might seem overwhelming. 

Every provider has a slightly different offering, charging more or less for trading or holding shares and giving access to a different range of stocks, funds and investment trusts. 

When weighing up the right one for you, it’s important to to look at the service that it offers, along with administration charges and dealing fees, plus any other extra costs.

To help you compare the best investment accounts, we’ve crunched the facts and pulled together a comprehensive guide to choosing the best and cheapest investing account for you. 

We highlight the main players in the table below but would advise doing your own research and considering the points in our full guide linked here.

>> This is Money’s full guide to the best investing platforms and Isas 

Platforms featured below are independently selected by This is Money’s specialist journalists. If you open an account using links which have an asterisk, This is Money will earn an affiliate commission. We do not allow this to affect our editorial independence. 

DIY INVESTING PLATFORMS AND STOCKS & SHARES ISAS 

	Admin charge	Charges notes	Fund dealing	Standard share, trust, ETF dealing	Regular investing	Dividend reinvestment
AJ Bell*	0.25%	Max £3.50 per month for shares, trusts, ETFs.	£1.50	£5	£1.50	£1.50 per deal	More details
Bestinvest*	0.40% (0.2% for ready made portfolios)	Account fee cut to 0.2% for ready made investments	Free	£4.95	Free for funds	Free for income funds	More details
Charles Stanley Direct*	0.35%	No platform fee on shares if a trade in that month and annual max of £240	Free	£11.50	n/a	n/a	More details
Etoro*  No investment funds or Sipp	Free	Stocks, investment trusts and ETFs.	Not available	Free	n/a	n/a	More details
Fidelity*	0.35% on funds	£7.50 per month up to £25,000 or 0.35% with regular savings plan.	Free	£7.50	Free funds £1.50 shares, trusts ETFs	£1.50	More details
Freetrade* No investment funds	Basic account free,  Standard with Isa £5.99, Plus £11.99	Stocks, investment trusts and ETFs.	No funds	Free	n/a	n/a	More details
Hargreaves Lansdown*	0.45%	Capped at £45 for shares, trusts, ETFs	Free	£11.95	Free	Free	More details
Interactive Investor*	£4.99 per month under £50k, £11.99 above, £10 extra for Sipp	Free trade worth £3.99 per month (does not apply to £4.99 plan)	£3.99	£3.99	Free	£0.99	More details
iWeb	Free		£5	£5	n/a	2%, max £5	More details
Trading 212*	Free	Stocks, investment trusts and ETFs.	Not available	Free	n/a	Free	More details
Vanguard  Only Vanguard’s own products	0.15%	Only Vanguard funds	Free	Free only Vanguard ETFs	Free	n/a	More details
(Source: ThisisMoney.co.uk Jan 2025. Admin % charge may be levied monthly or quarterly