How much can you save?

Rose_Crow · 14 November 2008 at 2:52PM

Just noticed Egg's rate change

I'm with Lucy, going to stick with them for a bit - I've become 'used' to them and like being able to access the aacount online. Going to save myself the hassle and see if the rates pick up (although it doesn't sound like the base rate will be helping any time soon). With most ISAs tracking the base rate, if I change to one of the better paying ones, what's to stop them lowering their interest rate?

Lokolo · 14 November 2008 at 5:25PM

I am keeping with Egg for n ext few months. Jan my student loan will mean I will have deposited £2850 in this years ISA. Then in Feb I should be able to take some money as my Halifax 3 months will have matured so I can then fill up by ISA to £3600.

I will then think about moving the 2 (this years is with Barclays) into 1 fixed for a year or something. Then my April student loan thing can then go into savings.

Just waiting to hear more from IBM. They phoned (I was asleep though...) and then sent an email saying there is a position available for me but I may have to go for another business interview to make sure I am good enough. So fingers cross this is soon as I don't want come March and I haven't got a placement (+ IBM is offering £15k + £2k signon bonus.... which is pretty awesome!).

j-man_5 · 14 November 2008 at 6:58PM

LucyTheDwarf wrote: »

'Fraid not!

As the majority of my monthly savings is currently going into my Halifax Regular saver, I don't have much instant access savings right now! I have about £1300 that's currently hovering in HSBC's rubbish flexible saver (3% or so) as I withdrew it from Kaupthing last week, thinking I'd be able to deposit into my new NatWest E Saver by now (can't yet!), and another £1500 in another account, but this isn't much to have if I had an emergency. Though I'd hate to dip into my ISA, if I had a crises such as losing my job, I would be panicking without readily accessable funds.

I'm loath to go for anything but instant access in these times, while my savings pot isn't very large. I want at least 6-8 month's income readily accessable before I think about anything like that!

If you havent already got one Lucy you should get a HSBC regular saver if you can afford to put 500 in the current account each month. 8% fixed for the year. Great thread this by the way!

thriftylass · 14 November 2008 at 8:02PM

In the guardian today(online) was an interesting link to a site (Economic and Social Research Council) that very easily calculates where you fall in terms of income with regard to the UK population.

http://www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/

Someone on another thread just posted that, thought you might be interested too to try it out

LucyTheDwarf · 14 November 2008 at 8:04PM

I'm setting up a HSBC regular saver at the end of December. I intended to do it this month, but events took over. Shame you can only put £250 a month in though. I love the Halifax one. But I've used HSBC ones, and they're pretty good too.

Good luck with IBM, Lokolo

LucyTheDwarf · 14 November 2008 at 8:09PM

Wow... as a family, we're in the 9th decile, with only 4% earning more than us... Just goes to show how poor many people are... my dad has an average salary, my mum and brother a low salary, and mine is fairly low...

Surely that can't be right???

Anyone know what the average annual salary is for workers in the UK?

thriftylass · 14 November 2008 at 8:38PM

LucyTheDwarf wrote: »

Wow... as a family, we're in the 9th decile, with only 4% earning more than us... Just goes to show how poor many people are... my dad has an average salary, my mum and brother a low salary, and mine is fairly low...

Surely that can't be right???

Anyone know what the average annual salary is for workers in the UK?

According to http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285 the average UK salary is 479 per week with the top 10% earning more than 946 and the bottom 10% earning less than 262 pounds/week. I would be below average then although I alone are in the 8th decile group. But I guess average salary doesn't mean the same as what the majority of UK employees earn, because that would be 200 pounds according to that graph on the IFS website.

Rose_Crow · 14 November 2008 at 10:07PM

Ah sod - just realised that my short term savings account (Sainsbury's Internet Saver) has dropped from 5.5% to 3.5%. I could seriously lose my sense of humor over this, now where's that 'irked' smilie...

thriftylass · 14 November 2008 at 10:16PM

grn.w.nv wrote: »

Ah sod - just realised that my short term savings account (Sainsbury's Internet Saver) has dropped from 5.5% to 3.5%. I could seriously lose my sense of humor over this, now where's that 'irked' smilie...

Just do what I do now, thing of it as saving for the sake of saving/putting money aside and not spending it rather than saving for the sake of getting interest. Try to avoid thinking you're actually loosing money now due to high inflation

Suzey · 14 November 2008 at 10:34PM

thanks! :beer:

It's not bad, but it is a bit of a bugg-r that I've lost the interest. Still, I spose there was one point where I thought I'd lost £16k!!!

FSCS stuff is meant to take 3-6 months but this was a bit of an unusual situation as they weren't meant to be paying all of it back anyway (Iceland was meant to pay back the first £16k). So if they have to pay out again in the future, who knows how long it'll take...

Suze

LucyTheDwarf wrote: »

Yay for you! 1 month 4 days... that's not bad, either! I always thought if the FSCS was ever to be used, it'd take MONTHS to sort out. I'm sure it's not felt like a short time to you, but I must say I'm rather impressed by that.

How much can you save?

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