Leaving Money in the UK?

[April]

I just wondered what the latest advice is for leaving large sums of money here in the UK (i.e. the best way of leaving it safely etc).

Any advice very welcome.

Also, when transferring it to NZ - if it has to sit in the bank for very long, again what is the safest way to do it?

Thanks.

[norma]

There is a thread on this here:

http://www.enz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=26583

I'll also bump it up.

[Georgebulldog]

I'm finding Premium Bonds a great way as I'm winning more than I would get in interest I'm sure, now I'm re-investing the winnings so even more chances plus you can get to it quickly if needed

[April]

Unfortunately the other thread doesn't really answer my question - never mind. Thanks anyway.

[April]

I've just been told elsewhere that we're stuffed and should just exchange our money now and that there are no other options. This seems a little insane to me - as we're talking quite large sums of money, and to be honest it has put me off the entire move this morning - even thinking about stopping the house sale as the whole issue is stressful enough without that sort of negativity. Anyone else have helpful advice?

[walshy]

Why are you stuffed? Because of the xchange rate?

[April]

Basically that there's no chance of improving on what we could get now for many years to come. It has taken us a while to get the house ready for sale and now that's all done and we're near the end of the process, the exchange is worse than ever. We did plan on it being a little bit higher by the time we came to make the move.

[dandctaylor]

All of our circumstances are different but we sold our house in the UK last summer when prices were at there lowest. We then found a section we liked and a house that we wanted to build. We had to bring our money over and we ummed and ahhhd like you do and kept hoping that it would improve before exchanging it - we then got the invoice from the builder and had to change it there and then - I think we got 2.12 - not great! All our figures in the UK when we were planning our move were done at 2.5 - wishful thinking!!!

I dread to think how much money we have lost due to the exchange rate but we have now been in NZ 8 months and our new house 2 months. We have a bigger mortgage than in the Uk and I'm not working at the moment. But my boys (10 and 13) are very happy here and as a family we are very settled and love NZ - we wouldn't change anything!!

Claire

[April]

Thank you Claire - you've given me something to smile about - it's such a stressful time that any wobble can give you huge doubts. I've just checked into guaranteed savings accounts and non-linked institutions so have a little peace of mind in that respect for now if we do decide to leave money here.

[walshy]

You have to leaveyour money here, we certainly are, we wont change it up for less than 2.5, it was 2.8 for a time last year when we there but we didnt have our house sold!!
Now we are back here, we have really smartened the house up and got a great price, we arent going to throw money away and exchange at $2, we dont go until August so we hope it will improve but if not we will just wait, it will be back at 2.5 at least some time nest year, this cant last forever, history shows an average of $2.5 to the pound.

In the meantime just spraed it around in lumps of £40k in uk bank accounts and reap the interest!! ( not much)