Regular Savings Accounts

Kazza242

Innys wrote:

Dan209 - are you sure about the interest rate you have quoted on the chorley RS? When I click on your link, the rate quoted on the Chorley Premiership Regular Saver is 7.00%, not 7.25%.

According to Moneyfacts, here, Chorley's regular saver rate was increased from 7.00% to 7.25% with effect from 1/1/2007. It looks like Chorley have been a bit slow in uploading the new rate to their website.

I created a thread detailing the Chorley rate increase in early December.

interest_Ted

Dan29 wrote:

Also, although you need a current account for the Lloyds TSB 8% RS, you don't need to "operate" the current account, just make sure you open a Classic account rather than Classic Plus. Then just keep £1 in there - no need to pay in regularly.

Please be careful on this one. The form that you sign for the monthly saver actually says "you must have your main current account with Lloyds TSB....." and "..if you don't use your Lloyds TSB current account as your main current account, we can convert your monthly saver to a Guaranteed Tracker....."
This is only on the lilac form that you sign.

You can usually only apply in branch so you will sign this form and agree to those conditions, and hand the form back to the Lloyds person. However the set of terms and conditions that they actually give you (printed out while you wait), does not go into exactly the same specifics.

I understand that they review new accounts generally after one month and six months. So if you don't operate the account you could find yourself with a Tracker account instead of the 8% monthly saver.

Countering all of this, I am sure they would find it difficult to challenge whether it really is being used as your main account (they should not have access to how you use other accounts) as long as you pay a few bills out of it. Also you could of course argue that your copy of the T&C doesn't say that you need to operate it as your main account, but at that point you would be admitting that it is not your main account.

Heres a tip...if you do not want to pay all your bills from your Lloyds, pay part of each bill from the Lloyds account. The bank will not know how much your bill was for and it will increase the usage and look like you are operating it as a main account. If you are saving the maximum in the 8% regular saver then another suggestion is to upgrade the current account to a Classic Plus. You do need to pay in £1k per month, but of course £250 of that can/will go to the Reg Saver, and you probably have other regular savers that you can pay out of the remainder as well as the odd bill. Meanwhile you will be getting 4% on the dosh in the current account.

It probably boils down to how much time you have to fine tune (play with) your finances, as well of course as your financial position.

Ted

mary

Innys wrote:

Dan209 - are you sure about the interest rate you have quoted on the chorley RS? When I click on your link, the rate quoted on the Chorley Premiership Regular Saver is 7.00%, not 7.25%.

I rang them yesterday as I was interested in this account and queried it with the woman. She apologised and said she had forgotten to update the Affinity page and she would be doing it. Yes it's 7.25%