Frances Cook

So when it comes to organizing our money employees, most of us need a mix with things like cash savings accounts, then shorter term investments like bonds, and long term investments like shares or property.

That mix...

is where it can get tricky, but you can work that out by considering now money, soon money, and later money.

So you think about how soon do you need the money?

When you have that now money that you need for current bills, anything that life might spring on you,

now, as the name would suggest.

You have soon money that is for bigger life issues that could pop up.

They're not entirely unexpected, but they're not here right now today.

And then you have later money for building your future with.

Your now money is things like your everyday bank account and a savings account that you can access immediately.

You would have at least one month of expenses in those savings.

You can expect maybe

one to 2% back on that from interest rates.

And then you have money that you might need in one to six months.

That's cash still, but in a higher interest savings account that you can access in a few days.

And from that, you could expect returns of maybe a smidge over 2%.

If you don't think you need that money for six to 12 months,

then you can look at something like rotating term deposits, where they all sort of mature at different times so that you get a decent interest rate, but you can still access funds within just a few months.

It's not totally locked away.

So for that, you can expect returns of around 3%.