Is there anything stopping me from opening more than one current account?
Oscar_Bottomley
Posts: 8 Forumite
So I have all my student loan saved up (I stayed at home).
I've just opened a Help to Buy ISA with Barclays and will be drip feeding that for the next 4 and a bit years until I'm up to the £12,000 limit for bonus pay out.
I have about £16,000 set aside and I was thinking about opening a Flexdirect and Flexclusive, and firing some of the money in these accounts. I'd put £2,500 (max amount for the 5%interest) in the Flexdirect and £6000 in the Flexclusive. That's £8,500 for the year leaving £7500.
£3400 of that will be going to the HTB ISA, leaving £4100.
I know I'll need to keep at least £1000 of this aside to feed into the Flexdirect every month.
The question is, can I open another another Flexdirect and Fleclusive account and dump the remaining cash in them?
If so, would people suggest I do this, or would I be better off putting the cash in another regular saver account etc.
All help & advice much appreciated.
Oscar.
I've just opened a Help to Buy ISA with Barclays and will be drip feeding that for the next 4 and a bit years until I'm up to the £12,000 limit for bonus pay out.
I have about £16,000 set aside and I was thinking about opening a Flexdirect and Flexclusive, and firing some of the money in these accounts. I'd put £2,500 (max amount for the 5%interest) in the Flexdirect and £6000 in the Flexclusive. That's £8,500 for the year leaving £7500.
£3400 of that will be going to the HTB ISA, leaving £4100.
I know I'll need to keep at least £1000 of this aside to feed into the Flexdirect every month.
The question is, can I open another another Flexdirect and Fleclusive account and dump the remaining cash in them?
If so, would people suggest I do this, or would I be better off putting the cash in another regular saver account etc.
All help & advice much appreciated.
Oscar.
0
Comments
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You can have up to 4 current accounts at Nationwide but they will only pay you the 5% interest on one FlexDirect for one year, and you are limited to one FlexClusive Regular Saver.
You can have other current accounts and regular savers with other banks0 -
Archi Bald, thanks for clarifying,
I'm also trying to work out what rate (if any) of interest I would get on any money that passes the £2,500 threshold in the Flexdirect account. For example say I put in £5000 altogether, at least £2,500 would earn 5% interest, what about the other £2,500, would it earn any interest at all?
Cheers,
Oscar.0 -
Just worked out its 0% nevermind.0
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If you're not looking to buy a house in the next 4 years, perhaps it may be worth opening a Lifetime ISA, rather than HTB. This gives better returns, max £1000 per year, on each £4000 you put in. And unlike HTB, the max bonus is £32000, rather than £3000 (but you would have to be 18, and put in £4000 a year, for the next 32 years, to get the max bonus).
You can open a Cash LISA in June, via Skipton, and deposit the year's maximum amount in as soon as you like (or leave it til the very end of the tax year, and keep the money in a higher interest earning account, until then).
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/lifetime-ISAs#property6
Also, the Flexsaver has a maximum deposit of £500 per month. So in the meantime, whilst you drip feed that money in to that account, it's a good idea to keep it held in another interest earning account. 2 Tesco current accounts will do exactly that, with 3% up to £3000 (so £6000 with 2 accounts). They do require £750 to be put in to the account, each month, and 3 direct debits going out, to get the interest. But the money isn't hard to shift around, if you already have it. 6 direct debits may be a more difficult issue, though.
TSB will pay 3% on balances up to £1500. Again the account will need some money shuffled to it, per month, and a couple of direct debits. But you also get £5 a month for doing that.
And, as you have noticed, the Flexdirect interest is only paid on balances up to £2500, so keep siphoning off that interest in to the other accounts, until they are also full up.0 -
binaryuniverse, thanks for those wee snippets of info.
The thing is, I'm currently still living at my folks, I'm not really sure what path I'm going down career wise, so the future is a bit wary in terms of what job I'll get, the total amount of money I'll be making, if I move out in the next year etc etc. I will be working in a standard job for the time being.
Accounts that require direct debits and cashback on bills etc aren't as appealing to me just now. I only have two direct debits just now and still living at home so not too sure how much they would benefit me.
I'll definitely look into TSB account.
What do you make of the First Direct account? I have a current account with RBS and just opened the Flexdirect current account with Nationwide. I guess I could switch from the RBS account to First Direct and then make use of their 5% regular saver too? Or is that breaking some form of rules on current accounts?0 -
Oscar_Bottomley wrote: »What do you make of the First Direct account? I have a current account with RBS and just opened the Flexdirect current account with Nationwide. I guess I could switch from the RBS account to First Direct and then make use of their 5% regular saver too? Or is that breaking some form of rules on current accounts?
Many contributors here (myself included), have upwards of a dozen current accounts to take advantage of accounts that pay interest, have attached benefits or allow access to regular savings accounts.
If you qualify for a First Direct account (they are known to be picky), you can access their regular saver. Switching an account to First Direct may also earn you a switching incentive payment.0
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