I love ISAs

uncommonadvice

Is there such a thing as an ISA current account? i.e. one that comes with a chequebook and a debit card and where I can have my wages paid into.

Sorry if this is commonplace and I'm stupid, I've just never came across it.

agsnu

Surely this would only be useful if you earn less than £3600 in a tax year? That probably doesn't apply to many people.

There are some ISAs which have VISA Electron debit cards, and I'd be unsurprised if you could probably accept your wages via BACS. But since people generally avoid taking money out of their ISAs for obvious reasons, I haven't heard of anyone setting up SOs, DDs, etc.

uncommonadvice

You could earn £25,000 but spend £22,000 for example - it'd be the fact that the money is sitting there earning relatively good interest as opposed to sitting in a 0.001% current account.

Any bankers here?

MrBlackCat_2

uncommonadvice wrote: »

You could earn £25,000 but spend £22,000 for example - it'd be the fact that the money is sitting there earning relatively good interest as opposed to sitting in a 0.001% current account.

Unfortunately this isn't the way ISAs work. Your £3600 is the max investment for the year and it can only be invested once; if you take it out again it cannot go back into an ISA until the next tax year.

So if you put £3000 in one month, and take £2000 out again, you would still only be able to put another £600 in over the rest of the tax year even though you only have £1000 left in your ISA.

All you can do is find a competitive current account and sweep any surplus into the ISA when you know you don't need to spend it.

simax

There are current accounts out there that pay WAY better rates than ISA's at the moment anyway...

AndyInYorks

simax wrote: »

There are current accounts out there that pay WAY better rates than ISA's at the moment anyway...

Yes, but many people will consider that it's still worth using their ISA allowance, so that the money is ISA'd ready for when rates get back to normal (and income tax goes up).

Aegis

uncommonadvice wrote: »

Is there such a thing as an ISA current account? i.e. one that comes with a chequebook and a debit card and where I can have my wages paid into.

Sorry if this is commonplace and I'm stupid, I've just never came across it.

Sorry, an ISA current account would be next to useless as either a current account or a savings vehicle, so no, they don't exist.

Joe_Bloggs

You waste your ISA allowance by withdrawing money from the ISA. It might be better to sweep money to a high interest savings account with instant access and a few weeks prior to the end of the tax year pick an ISA and deposit what you have got.

I have a regular saver that should end in March and two 2.85% instant access savers. One of them feeds my egg money card (1% cash back). Thus I get a regular saver rate, sweep cash into savings, use up the ISA allowance and collect £5 each month by doing it through a Halifax Reward Current account.
J_B.

Sooler

AndyInYorks wrote: »

Yes, but many people will consider that it's still worth using their ISA allowance, so that the money is ISA'd ready for when rates get back to normal (and income tax goes up).

you can use it any time up until the end of the tax year, so may as well leave the money in a better paying account and pay it into the ISA at the end of the tax year if it is worth doing.

jonesMUFCforever

An ISA is an individual SAVINGS account so no - no bank will offer a cheque book or debit card on it. As other posters have said making a withdrawl from an ISA wastes the tax free interest - the only reason for opening an ISA in the first place.

LongTermLurker

uncommonadvice wrote: »

You could earn £25,000 but spend £22,000 for example - it'd be the fact that the money is sitting there earning relatively good interest as opposed to sitting in a 0.001% current account.

Any bankers here?

As others have said, you couldn't put that much money into an ISA- well, not within 6 years anyway

And also as people have said, why go for a 0.001% current account when you can have a 6% current account? There are plenty about if you look. As current accounts usually dwindle down to low levels pretty quickly, the Halifax Reward is hard to beat, paying £5 net "interest" each month - and you can have 3 of them!