what is an isa?

ISA stands for Individual Savings Account, a partial misnomer because whilst some ISAs are indeed savings accounts, others are not. An ISA is actually a wrapper round something else (a bit like a gift-wrapped present, the present is the more important thing).
An ISA can be one of two things

a savings account
an investment account

The sorts of [...]

index funds are good

Lately I’ve been hanging out at the forums on money saving expert. As I mentioned in my review, IMO they aren’t the best feature of the site, in part because the articles are so good, but also because two or three prolific members hate index funds.
I probably shouldn’t pick on them, but i will anyway. [...]

overpaying your mortgage or investing for retirement part 2

Free Money Finance posted earlier on whether it is better to invest for retirement or pay off your mortgage earlier, and I posted earlier about which of these strategies is likely to result in a larger financial gain. (The answer was generally to invest for retirement).
Thinking now about which strategy will be easier to set [...]