HELP! Maximising our wedding fund savings!

marbleheadj

Hi,

We have a year and a half till our wedding (594 according to her Bebo countdown!)

We have £4600 saved already in a A&L savings PlusSaver at 4.5%

I'd love someone to check our logic...

We think the best course of action is to get rid of the A&L account and to open the current best paying ISA's - one each in both our names - then transfer £3,600 of savings into one of them and the remaining £1000 into the other.

With the £200 that my fiance saves each month she would put the money into topping up the ISA that has the £1000.

With the £200 that I save each month I would open up the Barclays Monthly Saving 7.75% and save for the next 12 month.

All our money must be available in 12-15 months time to finance the different aspects of the wedding.

What do you all think?

Does this all make financial/common sense?

We'd love to get this right but we're just starting out on at this moneysaving game!

I look forward to all you experts keeping me on the straight and narrow!

Cheers
Scott & Mairi

Doomcow

dude, im in the same thing - however, we currently have approx £250 in wedding fund, going up at 10/week in a 6.5% hbos savings account.

could really do with upping this as wedding is in 2011.

i'd like to maximise our cash too, lookin forward to hear some more MSE answers here.

Lokolo

Marble - no advice needed, you got it sorted. Sounds good to me.

McKneff

instead of her putting £200 into her ISA and you putting your £200 into savings why not put both into the ISA, then when its full put the£400 into savings account. That way the ISA gets filled up quicker therefore saving more tax by filling it up earlier. I know what i mean sorry if it sonds confusing.

marbleheadj

Nice one.

Your right, I'm overcomplicating things and should concentrate on two ISA and then take it from there.

And if my calculations are correct then the ISA should reach its maximum by next April and then the following years £3600 saving can begin, yay!!

Thanks for the help

McKneff

not often i get it right but this time im glad to have been of help. i quite amazed myself actually, didtnt think about it filling up by April, :j :j
Good luck in saving for your wedding and of course for the day itself.