Hi,

I am in the process of buying a house and need to restructure my savings/amounts i pay each month...

I currently save £200 per month to ing direct, £50 to a stocks and shares isa, £210 to pension, £60 to income protection insurance..

I pay rent of 550 and my mortgage payments are going to me just shy of £700-so I was planning on cutting back on my savings to ing direct (as paying mortgage not so important to save to there)

I have a couple of cash isas (about £6k, but these are fixed rate and not easy access) and my stocks and shares isa has a £3k lump sum component. I have £5k in my ing direct account.

My question is-do I just stop saving to my ing direct account, and transfer £3k to an easy access cash isa? Do you think that there would be enough in savings there in case of emergency? my income protection insurance kicks in after 3 months. Or should I keep more than that in the very easy access ing account in case i need it? I am higher rate tax payer so presumably i should make most of isa allowance-just havent got around to it in last couple years(apart from the stocks and shares one-so couldnt have cash isa the same year)

sorry its long...

thanks

How much you need for an emergency rather depends on your obligations. Three to six months salary is the usual rule of thumb but that maybe too much if you spend not much.

On isas, if you have put £3,000 (or up to £4,000) in a shares isa, you can still put £3,000 in a cash isa.

If you have spare cash, certainly use youfr cash isa alowance first.

But the tax benefits of shares isas are a bit over-egged in my view, particularly if you invest for growth and not income. We get a capital gains tax allowance every year anyway, so you have to be making tons from your isa to see any tax advantage.

To my mind, overall, the most important factor is to save the money in the first place and it sounds like you are doing a good job .