Frances Cook

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%.

Then maybe if you don't need to access it for one to five years, you know, you might have some stuff coming up, but it's not immediate.

That's things like bonds or fixed income investments.

And for that, you might get three to five percent.

And then your proper long term money, five years or more.

shares, property investment.

And for that, we're looking at sort of over 7% per year, but smoothed out over a period of years, right?

Now, obviously, this is all a general rule of thumb, but they give us a starting place for understanding it all.

And again, you're seeing the time factor here, right?

So now money is life right now.

Bills, sudden surprises.

Soon money might be things like emergency savings or you need cash for if you lose your job, your car develops a fatal problem or your partner leaves you and you have to pay all the bills by yourself.

Sorry, it's all a little grim here, but they're also incredibly common problems that you need to be prepared for.

Those savings will go into an account that's hard to access but not impossible.

You don't want to see it day to day and be tempted, but you also want to be able to get that cash.

quite quickly if you need to.

I think the trickiest part with this money, especially anything that you're keeping in cash, in savings accounts, is getting used to the idea that this money won't be doing much work for you.

It's not building.