I'm not really the best person to ask as I'm very conservative. I am also not a financial adviser, so this is based on my personal approach.
Hope that helps
Instead of paring down your house, how do you feel about an offset mortgage? You still have the funds available in case of emergency.
I neither am a financial advisor, but missing from the original post and most of the subsequent replies is any assessment of what the investment (or spending) objective might be, and Sean himself says nothing about this nor about what pension provision he may or may not have made.
The information he does provide suggests that he is unlikely to need the cash pre-retirement. If he doesn't have significant pension provision, then feeding as much of it as possible (bearing in mind the annual limits) into a pension arrangement ought to be his first priority. He'll get full tax relief now, and benefit from 25% tax free withdrawal at any point after age 55, and in retirement many people pay tax at a lower rate on the balance than they do when working and earning.
If his pension is taken care of, then it's money for spending or giving away, not investing, as others have already observed. There are plenty of worthwhile places to give money as well as some that provide a reward, tangible or intangible (funding a 'Thomas scholarship for literature' at his old university is just one example).
Paying off any debts including the mortgage as top priority is a no-brainer.
The largest risks to wealth over the foreseeable are inflation and another financial collapse. Inflation-linked bonds and gold respectively are therefore both worth a proportion of the £.
I have a soft spot for VCTs, having bought a variety of them in years past; the tax relief is still generous, and my batch bring in return of around 8% pa (allowing for the tax relief on the initial investment); I treat them as annuities - what they are worth is irrelevant and I will hold them to death and take the few £k a year as tax-free income. The key is to spread the money around.
The pension point is a good one.
If there is no history of pension provision, then use of previous years + current years max contributions, and ISA allowances, would let ST put 200k into tax shelters in the next 8 weeks alone.
And even £1m is not such a huge pension pot when it may need to last 30-40 years. It is the sum that some GP's hit by their early 50s and complain about being 'forced' to retire early.
£10k limit of you are an additional rate payer like I suspect @SeanT is
OK, they had Tornados. The Ringo of aircraft. Good enough if you couldn't get anything better.
Their tanks were wicked cool, tho.
A bit unfair on the Thornado there, Mr. Code. First conceived in the mid-sixties, work started for real in 1968, flew first in the mid-seventies and entered service in 1979. For a three nation partnership that is stunningly fast. It is of course still flying with the RAF, they keep trying to retire it, but keep finding that the EuroFighter (aka Lightning -II) cannot match its capabilities.
Good enough if you can't get anything better? Well for nearly forty years it would seem the RAF have not been able to get anything better. No doubt the Crabs will manage to bin it in the end, once they have spent another few billion developing the lightning to do something it was not designed to do and buggered up the F35 programme. Still that is Crab Air for you.
I am a bit harsh on it, but both words are important. When it came in in the late 70's in the MRCA days, all white-and-red livery with those composite roundels and massive tail and its TSR2 arse (seriously: it has the TSR2's arse. Look at photos if you don't believe me) it looked great, really futuristic and swing-wing and everything. The pilots loved it, the crowd went wild. Reliable, easy to maintain, you could access both engines in a hangar easy-peasy. But...it just wasn't very good. Nothing wrong with it, UK could fly to the States and have interservice dogfights, perfectly respectable. But nobody bought it apart from the builders and usual suspects. It was...sort of OK. It turned up in the Gulf War, did a bit, flew into some sand dunes. It kept getting upgraded and is now a perfectly decent aircraft, no ginormous defects, but...a bit meh. It's a Vauxhall Astra. It's there. It's good enough. We couldn't afford a Mondeo, but it gets the kids to school.
(Ahem. The "EuroFighter (aka Lightning -II)"? You mixed two aircraft up there, didn'tja? )
"UPDATE: Over 25,000 supporters are expected to attend Saturday’s rally in Melbourne, Florida by President Donald Trump, according to Brevard County Republican Chairman Rick Lacey. Lacey spoke to WESH-TV Friday. WESH reported a large open field adjacent the tarmac and hanger is being prepped with jumbotrons to accommodate the massive crowd.
Democrats need someone who can win the ECV and that means turning around white, rural voters and rusting towns by Ohio river. That 'aint Warren in my opinion. Biden too old?
I've had Senator Tester in mind since he became Senator Tester. Would be a pick for me in 2020.
Jacob A Wohl Trump's tweets are the modern day version of FDR's Fireside Chats // Around the press, and straight to the people! https://t.co/l9T2Hyl36Q
They are pretty well the antithesis of FDR's fireside chats.
That isn't an argument. Why is it incorrect? I've no view.
Well spotted; it's a statement. If I took the time to explain the flaws in everything you copy and paste here, I'd have to give up my day job. If you can't see the difference between Trump's continuous divisive stream of consciousness ejaculations, and FDR's sparing and painstakingly crafted appeals for national calm then its probably not worth the effort...
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(Ahem. The "EuroFighter (aka Lightning -II)"? You mixed two aircraft up there, didn'tja?
If I took the time to explain the flaws in everything you copy and paste here, I'd have to give up my day job. If you can't see the difference between Trump's continuous divisive stream of consciousness ejaculations, and FDR's sparing and painstakingly crafted appeals for national calm then its probably not worth the effort...