Saving HELP Required

[bobandliz]

I am a little nervous about posting my financial details on here but I think I NEED too.

I am a tax payer, hubby is not. We have over £40,000 to save. Its presently sitting in a high street saving account earning pennies.

Having had REAL bad problems with internet fraud and my credit card, I am unwilling to hold any card, banking or personal money details online. We would also like to keep the money together, as splitting it would encourage us to spend it! Not worried if money is in both, just mine or just his name either. Whichever does us more good!

My question to anyone that can help is "Where do we put this money in 1 lump with instant access and monthly or annual interest"?

Additionally, we have no debts or mortgage to pay off so these truly are our savings that cannot be used to pay off any loans, HP or debts. We are very lucky and count our blessings often.

[deemy2004]

Do you have children i.e. get child benefit ?

If so the coventry BS family 1st Saver pays 5% on your lump sum and 7% on child benefit. Its best in his name for gross interest.. so you may have to fill in a form to transfer the child benefit payments to him

So pop along to your local branch for a chat.

[bobandliz]

Hi, Thanks for that. We do not have any children. Sadly, not being a with child family omits us from many benefits such as the one you mentioned. Do you know of any others that are suited to us? Again, I am a tax payer, hubby is not. Childless. Ideally like to save the money all together and not online.
Regards

[grumpyoldgit]

Why not have a dabble on premium bonds? - plenty of info on the boards if you search
GoG

[bobandliz]

Do premium bonds pay interest? I know nothing about them!

[deemy2004]

All the best rates are on the internet such as cahoot, Birmingham midshires etc.

Premium bonds - okay for a flutter but not good for your core savings.

[mary]

Have you both used up your ISA allowance for this year? If not you could each have £3,000 tax free (I know that is splitting it up but it's tax free interest - say with Halifax at 5%)
As said, previously the best rates are generally internet accounts.
Which bank are you currently with.
You could drip feed into the Derbyshire BS Regular Saver, which pays currently 5.4%, branch based or postal (I do the latter and no problems)
Likewise there are other Regular Savers i.e. Halifax, Principality, Scarborough BS etc.. It's nice to see a lump sum sitting in one account but ask yourself is that making the most of your money, or would it be earning more money in higher interest accounts.

[cheerfulcat]

Having had REAL bad problems with internet fraud and my credit card, I am unwilling to hold any card, banking or personal money details online. We would also like to keep the money together, as splitting it would encourage us to spend it! Not worried if money is in both, just mine or just his name either. Whichever does us more good!

My question to anyone that can help is "Where do we put this money in 1 lump with instant access and monthly or annual interest"?

Hi,

Have a look at moneysupermarket.com, where you can compare rates and filter for specific requirements such as high street branches.

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/savings/

As far as the tax treatment is concerned, if your husband is likely to remain a non-earner, keeping the money in his name means that you can have interest paid tax-free. Bear in mind that this also means that you will have no access to it.

HTH

Cheerfulcat

[al_yrpal]

You had problems with on-line personal/financial transactions.

If you take the proper precautions, you shouldn't have any problems.

Steps to take:

1) Scan your machine for existing Trojans and viruses. You can do this absolutely free here http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

2) If you access the internet via broadband you MUST protect your machine with a firewall, and with anti virus software. Even if you use a dial up service, you should use such software too, otherwise you are leaving yourself wide open to fraudsters.

3) Look at where you are getting your e-mail from. If you have had your e-mail for a long time, junk it and stop the inevitable spam which can often contain viruses and trojans. Open a new e-mail account to someone like yahoo who have very effective filters against all sorts of viruses. It will be painful and inconvenient, but it will kill off a major source of problems.

Don't open suspect e-mails, where its not clear where they have come from.

4) Keep passwords and user names secure, and change pw's every 3 months as a matter of routine.

Using these principles, and yahoo's addressguard I have never had any spam in two years

[bobandliz]

Thank You all very much for your replies. I will sort this out over Christmas and make our money work a bit harder for us!