Best way to invest 20k

With a £20,000 nest egg, you could easily benefit from investing in gold. Gold is a safe-haven asset, but has also outperformed many other investment vehicles in recent years, making it one of the best ways to invest 20k.

In terms of return on investment, gold is one of the best options to back, especially considering it has much lower risk than other assets. Historically, gold has performed well. Buying and selling physical gold is simple too, and there is no third-party risk from a broker or fund manager who could mismanage your investment.

As the chart below shows, a short-term investment can still yield good returns, but a long-term investment in particular can make considerable gains.

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By investing £20,000 in gold just one year ago, you could have made £1,774 (8.87%); much better returns than an ISA could offer. £20,000 invested in 2014 and left for five years would now be worth £28,248; an impressive gain of 41.24%. A ten-year investment, however, sees the biggest benefit; £20,000 of gold bought in 2009 would now be worth £35,994 – an impressive 79.97% gain.
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Best investment for 20k

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There are two ways to invest £20,000 in gold; coins and bars - and both offer unique benefits.
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Coins will have slightly higher premiums, due to manufacturing costs and size. Although larger coins exist, the typical investment coin will be one troy ounce of gold, and for £20,000 this will involve buying multiple coins. There are two benefits to this though; flexibility and tax reduction. By spreading your investment across several coins, you can sell off pieces of your investment as and when you wish, giving you a highly liquid asset. For UK investors, coins made by the Royal Mint also offer tax benefits on Capital Gains Tax. This means that, by buying a UK coin, your £20,000 investment will be maximised when you buy, and tax-free when you sell.

The Royal Mint’s Gold Britannia would be the ideal coin for a £20,000 investment. Introduced in 1987 – and containing 31.21 grams of 24 carat gold – the Britannia is internationally recognised, VAT free, and CGT exempt. At current gold prices, a £20,000 investment would buy you 18 of BullionByPost’s best value Britannias.

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Gold bars offer the lowest premiums; which for most investors is the primary factor behind their decision to buy bars. The cheaper manufacturing costs, and bigger sizes, make bars the cheapest way to buy gold. They’re easy to sell and easy to store, making them a hassle-free asset.

The closest to a £20,000 investment would be to buy our 500g best value gold bar. These bars offer investors 500g of 24 carat gold at the lowest possible premiums and, at the time of writing, one bar would cost you £17,278. With the leftover funds you could even buy a couple of the Britannias mentioned above to get the best of both worlds; a low premium bar, plus some flexibility with coins.

For a customer wanting a bar, but with a little more flexibility, then our pre-owned one ounce gold bars could be a good fit. Similar to the Britannia, with £20,000, you could currently buy 18 such bars.