Government bonus is paid monthly (roughly)
The bonus is paid a month or 2 after you add money.
The specific rule is:
- If a contribution is made on or before the 5th of the month, the bonus will be received approximately 28 days after the 5th.
- If a contribution is made after the 5th of the month, the bonus should be received roughly 28 days after the month end.
There may be additional delays on top.
Isn’t there an initial 1 year timer that runs though? I didn’t have my bonus deposit on my LISA until after year 1.
No 1 year timer for the first bonus, no. Maybe something went wrong with your account, or your particular platform don’t do things correctly? (eg. they only inform gov of your deposits after a year)
Maybe it had and I didn’t catch it - I thought that was one of the big differences between the LISA and the H2B ISA was that the LISA takes 1 year to “tick on”.
EDIT: You need to have it open for a year to use it towards a first time property - that is what I was confusing with.
Thanks all, so if I deposit the full £4k in April 2020 I will get the full bonus? Or is this done pro-rata?
I also didn’t get the bonus until after the end of the tax year of my first subscription
Yes, you ought to get £1k bonus in May or June 2020.
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If your platform (who are they?) are doing this, then you should really contact customer support to check their policies to ensure you’ll get your next bonus by the time you need it.
Yes, you will get it at the end of May as long as you pay in during April. Great way of getting free money from the government, I’ve just recently used a Lifetime ISA and together with my wife we got £6k free towards our costs.
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How’s everyone’s Lisa looking now?
I realise this is a bit of an old thread…
I am looking at starting a Cash LISA and Moneybox seems to be the best offer at the moment. What are your experiences with them as a few of you seem to be using them? Have any of you purchased a property using them yet, if so, how easy was it? Is there currently a better offer I’ve missed?
I’ve seen quite a few mixed reviews so wanted to get a recent picture, specific to their LISA, and hopefully not get fake reviews/gripes for historic issues or issues with other (irrelevant to me) products.
I’ve been using Moneybox since around October last year, and it’s been great so far. Obviously not close to purchasing a property through using them yet, but it’s helping me save a lot more than I had first expected. Like other savings apps like Chip/Plum, the amount of money I’m putting in is largely automated so I don’t even have to think about it. Then you have additional options like setting up a ‘Pay Day Boost’, super round ups (doubling the round up value), rounding up from multiple accounts, etc. It also now has a feature that will tell you exactly how much you should be saving to reach a goal of your choice. For example, I was putting away £20 a week on top of my round ups, but using this feature it told me that I’d need to up that to £80 a week if I wanted to meet my goal of getting a house in the next 5 years.
Haven’t got Moneybox+ or really felt incentivised to, but it’s now becoming more tempting as they continue to add more partners to their rewards.
Would definitely recommend it! 
Thank you I have savings in Marcus but I plan to use it for a house so it’s worth moving over to a LISA for the bonus (the plan to buy isn’t imminent, but the savings are doing okay).
100% you want a LISA, no interest anywhere is going to offer 25%
(Obviously, only if you know 100% that you want to buy a house for under 450,000)
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I like the Moneybox LISA, much better visually than Skiptons which i previously had.
Main issue is with how Moneybox operates, you cant load it directly you have to agree to send it… which then gets “collected” every wednesday and then is taken out of your agreed account by direct debit the following monday which then takes a few days to then show in your LISA.
So for example i could agree to add £50 to my LISA on a tuesday (2nd june)… wont show in my LISA until the following wedsnesdayish (10th june). In saying that obviously I can still be earning marcus interest on that money in the in between (up until 8th june) . It just takes a while to get used to it all really.
Im still not at the stage where ive tried to cash in yet, be another while yet but will be sure to update everyone in here when i do.
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I went with Skiptons for my LISA, knowing that if I was going to buy, it would be in about 2-3 years from opening.
I figured I wouldn’t be leaving it enough time to benefit very much from anything other than the 25% bonus, fees and market performance etc considered.
If you’re planning a cash LISA, I’d leave it until February or even March. You can put the full 4k into the account in one go.
Keeping it out of the LISA for as long as possible has a few benefits.
You can get higher interest rates
You have compete flexibility
If, god forbid, something bad happens before the end of the tax year, you won’t be forced to pay any withdrawal fees, so you’re limiting your risk a bit (though I know they’ve just loosened up the rules on withdrawals, I bet they’ll switch back again at some point)
Of course, if you’re going for stocks and shares, none of that applies. But then it’s probably not worth opening a stocks and shares for less than 10 years.
Thank you I have enough to cover the full amount for a few years and have very little expenditure compared to other people, so I have no worries about needing to withdraw anything.
I already have the recommended 3 months squirreled away with various banks to try and get the best interest rates (as well as a few pots with Monzo for various things I want to buy).
Also the earlier you have it in the lisa the longer you get the interest on the 25% bonus.
One thing to remember is the lisa needs to be open for a full year before you can use it on your first home purchase, but im sure you already knew that also
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And just to add to that - you can just open it with £1, (or the minimum opening amount depending on the bank), and then the day before the annual deadline, top up to £4k
And one more thing I don’t think I’ve seen - currently the Withdrawal Fee has been dropped down to 20% until April 2021. Meaning you’ll be net even if you do choose to withdraw this financial year.
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