I wonder if anyone can help? I had an investment bond savings investment with the Prudential which matured in November last year - in 6 years it made nothing, in fact I lost nearly £10,000 due to mis-leading information. Both my husband and I were under the impression that once the money matured with the FTSE index, it stayed there (we thought it was a `safe' risk account) I pulled the whole lot out in January and it is now sitting in my flexible HSBC saver until I know where to invest. It is around the £23,000 mark and next time I want to put it somewhere it is going to make money and not lose it! I appreciate that all savings accounts and their rates are pretty abysmal at the moment but can you suggest a couple of companies I could half the amounts?

My suggestion is that you should avoid anything complicated. I don't understand "once the money matured with the FTSE index, it stayed there" so I personally would avoid that. I would, however, happily invest in a stock market investment that put 5% of the fund in one named equity, 4% in another, and so on. When those shares went up or down, I would expect my investment to do the same.

It sounds like you may be uncomfortable about investing in something that might go down, as many people are, so you should stick to cash savings accounts and fixed term cash bonds with banks and building societies that you know and trust.

There are many types of bonds but fixed term cash bonds are very different to investment bonds.