Anyone withdrawing savings due to 1% base rate?

tara747

tradetime wrote: »

There's a lot of "Stamp my feet, and scream and shout!" on these savings interest threads.
I'm taking my money out "because I'm not bailing out the banks."
If there was no capital in the banks because everybody took it out and the government wants to prop them up then they will do it with taxpayer money, or they will print what they need to do it, thus devaluing the money under your mattress.

Screaming shouting and stamping feet usually just leaves you with a sore throat and sore feet.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are just being even more frugal and saving extra to make up for the IR cuts... the result is similar, even less money being spent on the high street, trouble for the economy etc. Whichever way the govt move, they (and the country) are up the creek.

ic

My only real savings are my ISAs, which I won't be withdrawing because I don't want to lose the tax free status on that money. I'm hoping there may be some good (by current standards) offers around April as the banks look to attract customers.

Otherwise I'm concentrating my money on getting debts cleared. I've already paid off my car and kitchen loans, and now concentrating my efforts on my mortgage - I can over pay by up to 10% of the mortgage balance each year. By doing so I get an effective savings rate of 4.7% tax free, or 5.9% before tax.

My mortgage does allow payment holidays or in special circumstances even refunds of the overpayment, so should I need money above and beyond my ISA savings, I do have the option to pull it back.

home_alone

After icesave I put most of my money into a fixed rate account (higher rate than icesave) and some in bank e savings accounts I find that my combined monthly interest is about the same as it was last year, problem is when the fixed ends next xmas what to do then hopefully things would have settled down a bit by then.

gary

bjorn_again

tradetime wrote: »

There's a lot of "Stamp my feet, and scream and shout!" on these savings interest threads.
I'm taking my money out "because I'm not bailing out the banks."
If there was no capital in the banks because everybody took it out and the government wants to prop them up then they will do it with taxpayer money, or they will print what they need to do it, thus devaluing the money under your mattress.

Screaming shouting and stamping feet usually just leaves you with a sore throat and sore feet.

Quite agree. My own experiences over the years of "foot stamping" etc has usually ended up with me cutting off my nose to spite my face. We would all love to see 6%+ on offer again, the simple truth is we ain't gonna get it any time soon. Ride the storm and don't do anything you may regret out of petulance. The tide will turn eventually, in the meantime think positively and consider that there are other things in life than money.

Aegis

Asheron wrote: »

Put it into Gold and Silver

Yes, because gold and cash are almost identical in terms of risk, right?

There's no doubt that gold should form part of a balanced investment portfolio if only through a generic commodity fund of some description, but telling people to put their money into gold and silver from cash is just reckless.

Yamman_2

Why not get all your mates together , form a consortium , and buy a property,then rent it out, or if you have enough lolly yourself by another property. BRICKS & MORTAR, Allways a good medium - long term investment.
John .

Aegis

Yamman wrote: »

Why not get all your mates together , form a consortium , and buy a property,then rent it out, or if you have enough lolly yourself by another property. BRICKS & MORTAR, Allways a good medium - long term investment.
John .

Illiquitity, complexity of owning among many people, risk of negative equity, risk of not finding a tenant, cost of managing the property as a landlord, risk of short-term tenants causing more damage than expected.

A few good reasons not to buy property directly.

Of course, you could buy into an Investment Trust dealing in property, but given how well they've done over the last years or so, that's probably not the most popular option either.

All in all, property's not bad as part of a portfolio, but it's probably not something most people should consider as their sole investment.

unitedwestand

apt wrote: »

missed plenty of chances to fix your savings at 6%

I didn’t miss anything.

I fixed mine last year at 7% & it runs out in April.

apt wrote: »

angry at the prospect of 2%

I'm angrier with the government and financial sector presuming that I'll be pacified in to propping up their false economy by throwing a handful of peanuts back in my face each year.

apt wrote: »

you want to stick your money under a mattress where you'll get 0% and it won't be insured if it's lost. That's hardly the thinking of an Einstein is it?

No I don't, anyone with decent savings will know that’s highly impractical.

apt wrote: »

Makes far more sense to move the money to the few remaining decent accounts.

As I said, most of my money is already in high interest rate accounts that are tied up in red tape & will be for several weeks.

By the time money is freed up good saving rates will be withdrawn. Hardly takes Einstein to figure that one out.

apt wrote: »

for savers to make it clear to politicians that they are going to lose millions of votes if they keep pressing for near zero rates

They're not listening, everyone's playing follow the leader & just like Bush &Tony, Gordon is just dressing the wound until he can pass the poisoned debt ridden chalice on to someone else.

Its a GLOBAL recession that stemmed from the irresponsible AMERICAN financial industry and negligent government which was fuelled by the naive PUBLIC who thought they could buy everything now & pay for it later.

Well, we are PAYING for it now, the whole world is.

I don’t cant see how rewarding and encouraging more borrowing is the answer & I'm definitely not going to let others extract the urine further by using my savings to do it.

Pssst

gozomark wrote: »

pyhrric victory would imply you lost all your savings as a result of keeping them at home... hopefully not what you mean:rotfl:

Nope ,the Pyhrric victory to which i refer is the one in which ,although you would have lost any amount of pitiful interest that bansk might pay,you would at least have denied them free use of your money,so not participating in the scapegoating of prudent savers to bail out reckless banks and individual members of society who are much less prudent in many cases.

Pssst

Asheron wrote: »

Put it into Gold and Silver

But arent Gold and silver prices at a historical high and therefore you can only lose again when prices turn downward?