Martin Lewis is urging everyone born in certain years to put £1 in a bank account as soon as possible.
The Money Saving Expert returned on Tuesday, December 12 with another tranche of financial wisdom for ITV1 and ITVX viewers.
This time, one of the topics Martin focused on was helping young people to buy a house.
Read More: Woman gets paid £39,000 directly into bank account as Martin Lewis urges
What many don’t realise is that there’s a government backed savings scheme that helps young people to buy a house up to the value of £450,000.
The Money Saving Expert has said that if you’re aged 18 to 39 and you don’t currently own a home then you should put money into a Lifetime ISA (LISA) account if you plan to buy a house worth less than £450,000 in the future.
These accounts are offered by all the big brand banks like HSBC, Natwest, Halifax and so on and each offers different interest rates on the cash but will all qualify for a government bonus.
The advice applies to everyone born between 1984 and 2005 as of right now, December 12, 2023.
Up to £4,000 can be put into the tax-free account every year until you reach 50, but you must make your first payment into an ISA before you reach 40. The government will then add a 25% bonus to your savings, up to a maximum of £1,000 per year.
The bonus is only payable after the account has been open for one year but the money doesn’t have to be sat in there the entire time, so you can open the account now and then dump savings into it later to get the bonus.
If you choose not to keep saving the money you pay a 6% penalty for withdrawing it instead later, but if you open the LISA account with just £1, you only risk losing 6p.
Martin said: “Shoving a lot in there when you don’t know what you’re doing isn’t worth it. What I’d definitely do is put £1 in. Because it’s got to be over a year before you can get the bonus so put £1 in and in a year you can definitely get the bonus and then you can put £4,000 in and get the bonus straight away.
“So every young person should put £1 in a lifetime ISA and you can cope with losing 6% of £1.”
You can rewatch this episode on ITVX now.
Read More: World News | Entertainment News | Celeb News
Yorkshire
