(the boring stuff that gives you freedom)
ISAs, cash reserves, emergency funds. Not glamorous — but liquidity gives you options that nothing else can.
How much cash is enough?
The universally accepted answer is six months' expenses in your current account. We'd probably go for a bit more — a patchwork of cash across current accounts, fixed-term deposits, money market funds, and cash ISAs, with maturities staggered over the coming year.
There's a feel-good factor to having it there. But there's a practical reason too: it protects against sequencing risk.
What is sequencing risk?
If you're drawing income from an equity pension and the market drops 30%, you're selling assets at the worst possible time. But if you've got twelve months of cash income set aside, you can switch to that instead — and let the portfolio recover without touching it.
Even if you're financially free, cash reserves aren't just about emergencies. They're about having the flexibility to make better decisions when markets are volatile.
A patchwork of short-term money.
Current accounts, notice accounts, fixed-term deposits, money market funds, cash ISAs, National Savings, Premium Bonds. It's rarely one thing — it's a mix, with different maturities and purposes. We work out what combination makes sense for your situation.
Two of our clients have won a million pounds on Premium Bonds. They're fun, they're tax-free, and they're part of what we do.
Short-dated gilts can be remarkably tax-efficient.
For higher and additional rate taxpayers, the capital gains element of short-dated gilts is tax-free. That makes them significantly more attractive than a deposit account paying the same headline rate. With our institutional platform, we can trade gilts directly — something most advisory firms can't offer.
We're a registered open banking provider.
Family Capital connects to your bank accounts directly — so you can see where your money is going, track your expenses, and understand your cashflow in real time. It's good to know where your money is. And it makes planning significantly easier when we can see the full picture alongside your investments.
Whose name is it in?
Making sure savings and deposits are in the right spouse's name is basic tax planning — but it's surprising how often it's overlooked. If one of you is a basic rate taxpayer and the other is additional rate, where the savings sit matters.
Platform matters here. Having a platform that allows easy transfers between family members and spouses means you can take advantage of allowances and rate differences without friction. It's one of the reasons we built ours the way we did.
How this fits into your wider plan
Savings provide the foundation — the liquidity that makes everything else possible.
Savings are step five because they sit between protection and investment.
Get the safety net right. Then build from there.
