Money

Investment advisers regularly regale us with ideas about where we should be putting our Isa money. But where do they invest? Jeff Prestridge asks five leading experts how they use their Isa allowance. (Pictured: Blackdown Financial director Neil Rossiter with his wife Lisa and children Libby and Evie).

Interested in saving into a stocks and shares Isa but not sure which platform is for you? Boring Money's Holly Mackay run through some of the best stocks and shares Isa platforms for investors - from the time poor, to the cost conscious to the inexperienced.

Charlotte Gilmour was delighted when she stumbled across a perfect holiday property (top left) on popular bookings site Airbnb last month. She had been hunting long and hard for a place large enough to accommodate 11 family members for a trip to be paid for by her 86-year-old father as a treat. But the booking for which she handed over more than £5,000 turned out to be a sham. Fraudulent villa sites can also catch out holidaymakers (bottom left).

The Minor Investor column picks over the dividend heroes list to find some Steady Eddie investment prospects to choose over a cash Isa. These five investment trusts all have a decent dividend that's likely to keep rising - so as not to spoil their long-term records - and four can be bought for less than the sum of their parts.

Hackett, whose new album The Night Siren will come out this Friday, went on to make millions from his musical career. He expects to make more this year than ever before and his 15-date tour, called Genesis Revisited with Classic Hackett, starts next month. Hackett says peace, love and friendship mean more to him than money.

Older homeowners with interest-only mortgages they cannot pay off at the end of the term are being offered more ways to stay in their homes. Valerie Woodward, 77, and her husband Peter, 83, released equity from their property in Perranporth, Cornwall, four years ago to buy a second home in Spain.

The Rent a Room scheme was designed to help ease the housing shortage. Owners increasingly find lodgers via websites such as Easy-Roommate and Spareroom. The owner must let their mortgage lender and household insurer know: failure to do so could invalidate policies.

To help you minimise time spent trawling through savings tables, the team at This is Money has picked our five top fixed rate Isa deals across a range of fixed rate terms.

Buying British In 2017, by supply chain member organisation GS1 UK, said that of the major supermarkets, Tesco as Britain's largest retailer, has afforded the most opportunities to GS1 UK's new joiners over the past five years, trading with 33 per cent of them.

The boom was revealed by online payments group PayPal, which showed overseas sales at small and medium-sized firms rose by 34 per cent in the second half of 2016. Sales rose in the first half, too. Mark Brant, PayPal's UK managing director, said: 'When the buying power of international shoppers increased, we expected a surge in online exports. But there were other factors.

The pound is set to plummet as Brexit negotiations begin, amid fears of a lengthy stand-off between the UK and the European Union, City bankers are warning this weekend. The pressure on the pound will be compounded later this month as sterling is set to drop down the rankings of 'reserve currencies' used by central banks, with the Japanese yen set to emerge as a more popular currency.

The supermarket has introduced a Bombay Spice outlet to its Bradford stores as it looks for ways to entice shoppers into stores Customers can eat in-store, collect or have it delivered by Just Eat.

I don't use my home phone and rely on my mobile for making calls so why do I need to pay out for a landline just to get broadband in my home? Are there any broadband-only providers I can use instead and if so would this lower my overall bills?

Confused.com estimated that premiums will creep up from the current £767 average to over £1,000 due to hikes in insurance premium tax and changes to the personal injury discount rate. And it also provided an insight into how costs could fluctuate in the next decade with the introduction of new technology.

Could you really get a brand new car for under £110 per month? If you are happy to get a small hatchback and take out a finance deal that means you don't really own it, then the answer is yes. Personal contract purchase finance schemes - commonly called PCPs - are a very popular way to buy a new car and we've found five you could get for under £110 per month.

The rate matches the lowest ever seen on the British mortgage market - and a similar deal was offered by HSBC last year, but it was pulled by the bank in December. Santander already offers a 0.99 per cent deal - but this is only fixed for 18 months, making the Yorkshire's deal cheap for six months longer.

When you think of property hotspots, glamourous London locations might spring to mind, but, it's the middle- England town of Northampton that has the fastest moving housing market. Buyers searching for a home in Milton Keynes and Croydon also often have to act fast, as homes in these areas typically go under offer 29 and 30 days, respectively, Zoopla's latest figures show.

I'm looking to update my cash Isa in the coming weeks - why are the rates so much lower on fixed-rate Isas compared to standard accounts? The gap between the two seems to be widening even further.

There's still time to beat the deadline and dodge the increasing tax costs, as long as you order a vehicle that dealers still have in stock by Monday 20th March. Like the seven models we feature, they include, clockwise from top left: Fiat 500, Land Rover Discovery Sport, Audi A4 Avant, Mercedes-Benz A-Class.

After filling in an online survey, I was offered some free anti-wrinkle cream. All I had to pay was delivery, so I accepted on behalf of my wife. Creams then started arriving erratically. I tried to stop these even before the cost became apparent - I discovered that nearly £1,000 had been taken from my current account.

The price increases rapidly and those aged 75 can expect to pay an average of £36 more a single trip policy than those aged 55. While just 15 per cent of all single trip policies and six per cent of all annual policies have no maximum age limit.

To clear the average national household debt of ?13,000 at 6% interest with a monthly repayment of ?100 will take around 17 years. There are, however, plenty of simple ways to make significant savings on your regular spending that could clear your debt - or boost your savings - in less than a year. This is Money's top 50 - updated - money-saving tips may appear light-hearted but are deadly serious.

Choosing the right DIY platform is crucial but a wealth of choice and changes to charges have left many investors scratching their heads. We pick some of the best. We also highlight why investing in an Isa makes sense, as it should protect your hopefully growing investments from tax forever.

The amount you can save into a pension ultimately depends on what you can afford - but the longer you leave it the more you will need to save. We tend to put ambitious targets on our hoped-for income in retirement and then underestimate how much we will need to set aside to achieve that. So how much should you save?

Inflation pushed up to a higher than expected 1.6 per cent in December, but pressure remains within the range that the Bank of England is expected to disregard in its interest rate decisions. Rate setters did not meet in January due to the shift from monthly decisions, the next MPC meeting and announcement is due in early February, alongside the Inflation Report.

Despite endless media coverage of the political wrangling and financial speculation, the average Briton can be forgiven for remaining confused about what 'soft' and 'hard' Brexit really mean. But a clever table put together by HSBC cleaves some clarity from the murk.

Compare your pay to the national average and see whether your employer treated you to a pay rise in line with the the rest of your profession. Farmers, care and air travel assistants were big winners on the pay scales in 2016. Travel agents, careers advisers and probation officers lost out.