The big money decisions

Buzz Money Coach · Pillar guide

Some money decisions you make dozens of times a week — the coffee, the takeaway, the basket at the checkout. They matter less than the internet insists. Then there are the decisions you make a handful of times in a lifetime: buying a home, sorting a pension, protecting an income, passing things on. These shape decades, and most people make them with less research than they'd give a new phone.

This guide is a plain-English map of those decisions. It won't make the choices for you — and where a choice genuinely needs regulated advice, it says so plainly and points you at the right kind of person. What it will do is make sure you understand the moving parts before you're sitting across a desk from someone using words you don't want to admit you don't know.

Buying a home — the deposit is only the entry fee

Everyone fixates on the deposit, fairly enough — it's the biggest single number. But it's the entry fee, not the bill. On top of it, in England and Northern Ireland, budget for:

• Stamp duty — nothing on the first £125,000 for a standard purchase, then it steps up in bands. First-time buyers pay nothing up to £300,000, then 5% up to £500,000 — and the relief vanishes entirely on homes over £500,000. Check the real figure on MoneyHelper's calculator before you fall in love with anything. (Scotland and Wales run their own, different, property taxes.)
• Legal work — conveyancing typically runs to around £2,000 including VAT, with local searches usually £250–£300 on top.
• A survey — £400–£1,500 depending on depth. On an older property, skipping this to save a few hundred pounds is how people inherit a £15,000 roof.
• Lender costs — the mortgage valuation (£150–£800 where the lender doesn't cover it) and product fees that can top £1,000.
• The first year — the fridge that dies in week two, curtains, a boiler service, furniture. Nobody budgets for year one, and year one always sends a bill.

If you're a first-time buyer. A Lifetime ISA gives you a 25% government bonus on up to £4,000 a year — up to £1,000 of free money annually — towards a first home worth up to £450,000, as long as you open it before you turn 40. Withdraw for anything else before 60 and a 25% charge means you get back less than you put in, so read the rules first. Our first-time buyer guide covers the LISA, the schemes and the sequence properly.

The mortgage itself is one of the few places free expert help genuinely exists: a whole-of-market broker sees deals you can't, knows which lenders will actually accept your situation, and is usually paid by the lender rather than by you. Going straight to your own bank feels simpler but shows you one menu instead of the market — when to use a mortgage broker explains how it works and what to ask.

Pensions — boring, enormous, mostly ignored

A pension is just a pot of money with two superpowers: your employer pays in alongside you, and the government returns the tax. Ignoring it is turning down free money — and it remains the most common financial mistake in the country. The essentials, without the jargon:

• Auto-enrolment puts most employees into a workplace pension at a minimum of 8% of a band of earnings (£6,240–£50,270 in 2026/27), of which at least 3% comes from your employer. Opted out? You've declined a pay rise. Opt back in.
• Tax relief means £100 into a pension costs a basic-rate taxpayer £80. Higher-rate taxpayers can effectively pay just £60 — though above the basic rate you may need to claim the extra back through self-assessment, depending on how your scheme collects it.
• The State Pension is real but modest, and only pays in full with enough qualifying National Insurance years — check your forecast on GOV.UK, because gaps can sometimes be filled cheaply.

£241.30a week — the full new State Pension from April 2026, about £12,548 a year. A floor to build on, not a retirement.

The most powerful thing about a pension isn't the fund choice — it's time. Money in at 25 has forty years to compound; the same money at 55 has ten. That's why ‘start now, even small’ beats ‘start properly, later’ almost every time, and why nudging your contribution up 1% with each pay rise — while you can't feel it — is the highest-leverage habit in this entire guide. What ‘enough’ actually looks like is in the pension reality check, and turning a pot into a retirement date is its own guide.

This is where advice earns its fee. Choosing the investments inside a pension, consolidating old pots, and anything touching a defined-benefit (final salary) scheme are regulated territory — a DB transfer worth more than £30,000 legally requires regulated advice before it can proceed, and for good reason. That's not coaching; it's advice, and it needs an authorised firm. Buzz Money Ltd is not authorised to give regulated advice, and does not — where you need it, we say so and can introduce you to Equity & General, authorised and regulated by the FCA (No. 474163), entirely optional and with no obligation.

Investing — after the foundations, not instead of them

Investing comes fourth, not first: buffer built, expensive debt cleared, pension match taken — then invest. Done in that order it's genuinely powerful; done instead of that order it's gambling with the rent. Three things worth knowing before any money moves:

• The wrapper and the contents are different things. An ISA is a tax-proof box — you can put up to £20,000 a year into ISAs (2026/27) and pay no tax on what grows inside. What you put in the box, cash or investments, is the actual decision. ISAs explained untangles it.
• Time horizon decides the tool. Money needed within about five years generally belongs in cash; money with five-plus years to work can afford the stock market's mood swings.
• Investing and trading are different activities with very different odds — one is patient ownership, the other is a fast game most players lose. Here's which is which, before an app teaches you expensively.

Which specific funds? That's either your own research or a regulated adviser's recommendation — a coach's job is making sure the foundations are solid, the goal and timeline are clear, and you actually understand what you're buying before anyone sells you anything.

Protection — insure the engine, not just the bodywork

Most people insure their phone, their holiday and their cat, and leave the thing funding all of it — their income — completely bare. So sit with the uncomfortable question: if illness stopped your income for six months, what happens? If the honest answer is ‘the savings run out by month two’, that's the gap. The main tools:

• Income protection — pays a regular income if illness or injury stops you working. The most overlooked policy in Britain, and usually the one that matters most.
• Life insurance — a lump sum if you die; essential if anyone depends on your income, close to pointless if nobody does.
• Critical illness cover — a lump sum on diagnosis of specified serious conditions.

You almost certainly don't need all three, and you shouldn't be sold all three. What you need depends on who relies on you and what would actually break — how to protect your income maps it out, and structuring the right cover is a proper advice conversation, not a checkout page.

Passing it on — the kindest admin you'll ever do

The least fun topic and the most postponed, which is exactly why it goes wrong. Die without a will and intestacy rules decide who gets everything — and they don't recognise unmarried partners at all, however long you've been together. The essential kit: a will; lasting powers of attorney so someone you trust can act if you can't; and up-to-date beneficiary nominations on pensions and life policies, which sit outside your will and go wherever the last form you filled in says — even if that's an ex from 2011. A few hours of admin, decades of protection for the people you love. Wills and financial admin walks through the lot.

Five questions before any big decision.

1. What problem is this actually solving — and is it my biggest one right now?
2. What does it cost in total, over its whole life — not per month?
3. What would have to be true for this to turn out a mistake?
4. Which of my assumptions are facts, and which are hopes?
5. Is this a question I can answer with guidance and homework — or is it regulated-advice territory?

The thread running through all of it

Every decision here gets easier when the day-to-day is already working — numbers known, buffer built, nobody firefighting. That's why the foundations guide comes first. And every decision here eventually reaches the line where general knowledge stops and personal, regulated advice begins; knowing where that line sits — and not blundering across it alone, or paying for advice you didn't need — is half the game. If you're not sure which of these decisions is actually next for you, the free Financial Freedom Score takes eight minutes and tells you.