[J]

This is Laura Howard:



She's an independant money/finance expert and TSR has been offered the chance to run a Q&A her. So any pressing financial woes you have you could get her response.

Her Bio:

Laura Howard is author of A Girl's Guide to Money – a financial self-help book for young women. Having started out in personal finance and property journalism in 1999, Laura now freelances for a range of national newspapers, magazines and websites. She is a regular contributor to the Independent on Sunday and Guardian Unlimited and writes a monthly economy column for Estate Agency Times. Laura was shortlisted in Headline Money's Best Mortgage Writer and Best Freelance Journalist categories in 2006 and 2007 respectively and in both categories in 2008.


Do you think you'd like us to set this up? Does anyone have any other ideas for how Laura could offer some help through the site? E.g Articles? Real time chat?

cheers

[Orthala]

Um I am not quite sure. Only because I think it will be very repetitive with people asking the same questions over and over.

I think if there were artciles that people could read up about on. And maybe an FAQ which then links to these articles then yeh awesome.

But RT chat nono.

[J]

everyone could suggest questions in the forum then we could distill that list down to 10 or so that are the reoccurring really pressing ones and then get her to answer them in a detailed way. then get that up and an article on the site ?

[GR29KHS]

J, that sounds like a really good idea (the 10 most pressing questions). A lot of the standard questions can be answered on here.

[Willis123]

i need money advice got 15k i need to invest but its all in dolalrs

[edge]

Shes a journalist, not a finance expert.

You need to look for someone whos either an IFA or an accountant.

[GR29KHS]

Originally Posted by Willis123

i need money advice got 15k i need to invest but its all in dolalrs

Depends what you want to do with it. Most banks will give you free advice I think.

Anyway, you need to consider the term you're prepared to 'lock it away' for, or whether you want instant access to it. The longer you lock it away the more interest you will get. Also have you used up your cash ISA allowance for the year? If not and you're a tax payer then get 3.6K of it into one with a high rate of interest. if you're not a tax payer you might be able to get a really decent interest rate on a regular saver or similar.

Lastly, are you prepared to risk the capital for potentially higher returns or would you rather the capital was protected.

[Willis123]

Originally Posted by GR29KHS

Depends what you want to do with it. Most banks will give you free advice I think.

Anyway, you need to consider the term you're prepared to 'lock it away' for, or whether you want instant access to it. The longer you lock it away the more interest you will get. Also have you used up your cash ISA allowance for the year? If not and you're a tax payer then get 3.6K of it into one with a high rate of interest. if you're not a tax payer you might be able to get a really decent interest rate on a regular saver or similar.

Lastly, are you prepared to risk the capital for potentially higher returns or would you rather the capital was protected.

I want to put it away for like 30 years, and Im willing to take on more risk for higher returns.

So i was thinking stock portfolio.

[J]

would someone like to get a new thread going to get these questions compiled?

[danni_bella]

I agree with J, I think that would be a sensible idea. I am happy to go ahead and start this, if no one else wants to

Would be very interested to read about this Q&A as saving for a house, but plan on being a student again next year. !

[J]

Originally Posted by danni_bella

I agree with J, I think that would be a sensible idea. I am happy to go ahead and start this, if no one else wants to

Would be very interested to read about this Q&A as saving for a house, but plan on being a student again next year. !

Pleasse could you collect the questions in a new thread with a little bg info? let me know and i'll sticky the thread so its prominent we could use announcements too depending on how much response we see. thank you