Anyone else opened a Christmas saver with Skipton?

edinburgher

I've recently opened a Christmas saver account with Skipton with my girlfriend and was wondering if any other moneysavers were looking to do the same?

While not being in any way an advert for their product, on top of reasonable interest rates, I've always found such products to be good because:

You can vary the amount paid in
It's a great comfort to see the money building up over the year
You aren't tempted/allowed to spend it

This will be the third year running I've opened a similar product and I think I'll continue to do so in future. That said, the rates offered now are a far cry from the 'glory days' of my Bradford & Bingley saver with 10% interest from not so many years ago...

apt

I don't want to tempt you, but you can close a Skipton Christmas Saver at anytime without a penalty. Indeed that's its main adavantage over fixed rate one year savers like Barclays, Abbey and Halifax which offer a better rate of interest than Skipton.

edinburgher

I did notice that actually apt, I just didn't want to mention it to try and save fellow forumites from temptation!

*Edit: Now you've let the cat out of the bag let's hope my gf doesn't read this*

knights

You can have three 'Special Savers' running with them at the same time as well if you wish.

edinburgher

knights wrote: »

You can have three 'Special Savers' running with them at the same time as well if you wish.

That sounds interesting - can you expand on it? Do you mean Christmas savers specifically?

LittleVoice

Special Savers are different. They offer the same rate but run for one year from the date of opening - whereas the Christmas Saver ends on 24 November whenever in the year you open it (so it can be for almost 13 months or for a couple).

knights

edinburgher wrote: »

That sounds interesting - can you expand on it? Do you mean Christmas savers specifically?

Here's the link:-

http://www.skipton.co.uk/savings_and_investments/savings_accounts/special_saver_account/

anna42hmr

i have opened the skipton account a few weeks back, it was really easy to set it up as well

edinburgher

knights wrote: »

Here's the link:-

http://www.skipton.co.uk/savings_and_investments/savings_accounts/special_saver_account/

That's actually a different account to the one I mentioned - but the more the merrier! There seems to be no reason why you couldn't open three of these and one of 'mine'. Bar needing £1000 to fund them all (assuming you want to invest the maximum possible, of course!)

This could be very useful for people looking to save a lot in a short space of time (for example, someone who's debt free and looking for a mortgage?)

JohalaReewi

Yup. And you can do it all online if you open the online versions of these accounts. The standard accounts are passbooks which have to be sent in when you want to withdraw funds or close the account. Not a problem if you have a branch handy but not many people do.

anna42hmr

does any one know, can you pay in more than once a month into this account (as long as the two combined are under the maximum) as it says in the t&c's the amount can be varied, but doesnt specifically say if it has to only be once a month??