What should I do with a Grand ?

ste1200

Hi, I have about a grand which is pretty much my entire savings. I am getting married in 2011 so I am trying to maximise my savings whilst spending as little as possible.

So basically I have a grand plus up to £100 a month spare to go with this over the next 12 months. What should I do with it please ? ISA ?

Thanks
Steve

agsnu

Get a market leading regular savings account for the £100 a month. Are you a taxpayer? You could take out a 1 year fixed rate ISA and get about 3%.

opinions4u

£500 in a Halifax Regular Saver plus £100 a month.

Use your other half to do the same (but perhaps do £50 a month each!).

5% rate, need to fund by 8th October to get that rate.

ste1200

Thanks, I don't actually get the money until mid October so I can't do that unfortunately

I may put it in an ISA, £30 interest after 1 year is a bit poor though, can you top it up by paying an extra £100 a month or do you have to put what you have in one go ?

ste1200

any reply to this please ?

Lord_Blue

The ISA is 3% fixed for a year with no option to touch the money. Or you could get an ING savings account at 3.2% and be able to access the money as much as you want i.e. emergencies etc.

ses6jwg

Unfortunately £30 interest off £1000 is about the best you can hope for at the moment.

If you want more you could gamble it on the horses, spread betting or take a risk in the stock market.

Your call.

rb10

Lord_Blue wrote: »

The ISA is 3% fixed for a year with no option to touch the money. Or you could get an ING savings account at 3.2% and be able to access the money as much as you want i.e. emergencies etc.

It depends which ISA you open. First Direct's E-ISA is fixed at 3% until November 2010, and you can withdraw from it when you like.

You are not comparing like-with-like. If the OP is a basic rate taxpayer, then the ING account will be 2.56% net. Against 3% from the ISA, that one's clearly the way to go.

paulw19

ses6jwg wrote: »

Unfortunately £30 interest off £1000 is about the best you can hope for at the moment.

If you want more you could gamble it on the horses, spread betting or take a risk in the stock market.

Your call.

You are seriously advising somebody to gamble their entire life savings?? :mad: He has already said this money is allocated for a wedding. So come the time to pay for the wedding he has lost all of his money on horses, would you still consider your advice reasonable? Yes rates are poor right now but try and be a little bit more responsible.

To Ste1200; I would recommend opening up a Halifax reward account, thats £60 added over the year simply by moving £1,000 in and back out of the account each month. You can set up automated payments to do this, and some people even do this over multiple accounts to get much more per year. You can pair this with the Halifax regular saver account which gives decent interest, as mentioned by opinions4u. The amount you save or use for the reward account is upto you, as I dont know any more of your circumstances I cant say much else.

manic1_2

ste1200 wrote: »

Thanks, I don't actually get the money until mid October so I can't do that unfortunately

I may put it in an ISA, £30 interest after 1 year is a bit poor though, can you top it up by paying an extra £100 a month or do you have to put what you have in one go ?

You can top it up whenever you want. The limit is £3,600 to save per tax year. I think the limit goes up next year (if you're under 50) and its already risen if you're over 50

sasilverman

People above are right that due to quite poor interest rate, even with the best ones you are looking at £60 interest in 12 months.

Have you considered buying premium bonds? While you may only get a 0.5-1% return on them (so less than a good savings account, but at the end of the day you're taling maybe £30 difference?), you do give yourself the chance to win big. It would also discourage you from dipping into the fund, as you can't just draw the money out from a cash machine. You can setup a direct debit to add the £100 also on a monthly basis.