Where should I put my house deposit money next year

jbennett_2

Hi everyone,
I’m currently saving up for a house deposit and have £15,000 saved in a joint Nationwide Bonus Saver account with my girlfriend.
We are due the Bonus and interest on 31st December 2008 and next year would like to move the money to another account.
Does anyone know of a joint savings account that pays good interest, preferably on a monthly basis.
We don’t require access to the money for another 2 years once we have saved 45k as we would like to then put this down on our first house.
Thanks
Regards,
Jon

ragingbass

Goes without saying to make sure you’ve filled up both your ISAs up first for this year and then come next April, pay in both of your maximum allowance from your savings accounts into either your existing ISA, or new one if you can get a better deal.

I'm not 100% on this, but I don't believe there's any real difference between a single and joint account, other than they're legally in two names instead of one. All the account features are exactly the same, whether single or joint.

In terms of the rest of the cash going into a savings account, I've no experience with them myself, but Nottingham Building Society are currently offering 6.5% AER (5.5%+1.0% bonus for the first 2 years if you make less than 6 withdrawals or less in a year). With the length of the bonus, it sounds right up your street. Their rate hasn't dropped and they guarantee to be at least 0.5% above the base rate until 1st Nov 2010.

It does only pay interest annually, rather than monthly as is your preference, and you can only do the banking over the phone. So you'd need to figure out how important those things are to you?

Incidentally, I've always preferred accounts where interest is paid monthly also, but haven't found a good online calculator that allows you to factor that in. I'm no mathematician, but I did try to do a bit of a back of a fag packet calculation a little while back, and the way it came out the figures really weren't that different. If I remember correctly, getting paid interest monthly meant I was only effectively getting an extra 0.1% interest per year, before tax. I'm sure someone on here will be able to give you a more definitive answer on that though.

ragingbass

Forgot to mention, I'd check the rate again on Monday 1st Dec 2008 before you make your mind up. There's a few providers that are rumoured to be dropping their savings rates then.

jbennett_2

Hmm interesting.

The current rate i'm getting is something like 4.40% gross and 3.52% net

The 3.52% includes the bonus, which i have religiously stuck to for the required 11 months as of the beginning of this month.

I wondering if that will drop to 3.90% next month?. The 4.40% is displayed on the Nov 1st interest sheet I got from the Nationwide website.

I like the idea of monthly interest for the fact that it will make me feel more motivated and I don't have to wait a whole year to find out my interest.

caracal_77

jbennett wrote: »

Hi everyone,
I’m currently saving up for a house deposit and have £15,000 saved in a joint Nationwide Bonus Saver account with my girlfriend.
We are due the Bonus and interest on 31st December 2008 and next year would like to move the money to another account.
Does anyone know of a joint savings account that pays good interest, preferably on a monthly basis.
We don’t require access to the money for another 2 years once we have saved 45k as we would like to then put this down on our first house.
Thanks
Regards,
Jon

Between now and Apr 09', putting your money in ISA accounts (you can get around 6% tax free) will take care of most of your money (3600 x 2 x 2) and maybe start a regular saver (~7.5-8%) with the rest. After you do the first ISA deposit now, you can put the rest in some kind of 3 month savings account (Halifax for example) until next year ISA deposit can be made (Apr 09'). That's assuming you have no money in ISA account this year.

opinions4u

Some of the advice above is excellent (specifically Regular Savers and ISAs), but I'd be cautious with anything variable at the moment.

Action that you could take today would involve opening a Halifax Web Saver Reward with £50 or more (the account gets pulled on Monday, so you need to do this in branch today if you're not already online with Halifax).

- 5% fixed rate for a year
- 4 withdrawals allowed
- additional deposits allowed (must be automated e.g bacs, faster payments, chaps, transfer from other Halifax account)

For me this books you a guaranteed 5% rate for a year in a falling rate environment. If rates go up elsewhere you can get out of it. If they go down elsewhere you can move in to it.

Most of the 6%+ variable accounts are due to have 2% lopped off them any time now.

Setting £50 aside in this account gives you choices to maximise returns if higher paying account now turn in to turkeys over the next few weeks.

http://www.halifax.co.uk/savings/websaverreward.asp

I can't see a better fixed rate ISA anywhere than this lot either.

http://www.halifax.co.uk/isas/fixedrateisa.asp

Regular Saver wise they also do 7% although you might get slightly more on this from your own current account provider - check first.

Afahmaep

Take a read of this offer from Britannia Building Society

http://www.britannia.co.uk/home/c_savings/product/regsav/homesav/prod.html

The current rate is 6.50% but look at their mortgage products first as the offer is subject to taking out a mortgage with them or losing 90 days interest.

caracal_77

opinions4u wrote: »

Some of the advice above is excellent (specifically Regular Savers and ISAs), but I'd be cautious with anything variable at the moment.

Agree, I'd be cautious too. I also think many of them will be coming down very soon. :wall:

jbennett_2

Thanks everyone,
Is there any account that I can apply for today and get the interest rate stated.

I'm just a little worried that it wont be processed until Monday and I will not get the interest rates currently advertised.

Really want to get the best interest account possible before things start going down hill, which I presume will be the case as of Monday 1st December.

Thanks

evenasus

jbennett wrote: »

Hmm interesting.

The current rate i'm getting is something like 4.40% gross and 3.52% net

The 3.52% includes the bonus, which i have religiously stuck to for the required 11 months as of the beginning of this month.

I wondering if that will drop to 3.90% next month?. The 4.40% is displayed on the Nov 1st interest sheet I got from the Nationwide website.

I like the idea of monthly interest for the fact that it will make me feel more motivated and I don't have to wait a whole year to find out my interest.

Nationwide Savings interest rates as of 01/12/2008

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/mediacentre/pdf/savingrates-28112008.pdf

Bonus Saver dropping to 3.35% gross 2.68% net:(

fullstop

jbennett wrote: »

Thanks everyone,
Is there any account that I can apply for today and get the interest rate stated.

I'm just a little worried that it wont be processed until Monday and I will not get the interest rates currently advertised.

Really want to get the best interest account possible before things start going down hill, which I presume will be the case as of Monday 1st December.

Thanks

BOE meet again next week so interest rates will probably be cut again, from January 1st.