premium bonds

JILLB_4

Premium Bonds
Are these any good, especially buying them on a monthly standing order

Paul_Varjak

They are good - but only if you win!

deemy2004

They are good for tax payers, especially higher rate tax payers

Joe-C_4

I've had £100 worth since I was born, now I'm 21. I won £100 2 days ago! Got the cheque through the post and went an cashed it into my bank today!

deemy2004

Joe-C wrote:

I've had £100 worth since I was born, now I'm 21. I won £100 2 days ago! Got the cheque through the post and went an cashed it into my bank today!

In 21 years a savings account would have netted you £178 in interest.

chiny

Just found my wife has 4 premium bonds and has had for 40 years (strange as she claims to be 21 :-) Wonder if she is a millionaire ? Paperwork in finding out will probably be fun.

Spurred me into buying a load though.

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Chiny

MJSW

You don't need any paperwork to check if she has won any prizes. You can do it online at the NS&I website!

http://www.nsandi.co.uk/products/pb/haveYouWon.jsp

chiny

So it does. Drat. Back to work tomorrow :-(

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Chiny

Reaper

The best way to consider if Premium Bonds are worth it is to consider them as just another savings account.

As such the average return you can expect is currently 3.2% tax free. That is not very competitive compared to a cash ISA (up to 5.35% tax free).

They are, however, rather more fun. So by all means have a flutter, they are at least a vastly better bet than the National Lottery. But I'd suggest premium bonds as well as a savings account, not instead of.

Paul_Herring

Reaper wrote:

[...]they are at least a vastly better bet than the National Lottery.

Depends.

1) Put £x0000 into a savings account.
2) Put the interest gained on the lottery.

Depening on how you do the calculations, the Lottery can come out on top. Just did a quick search on TMF but couldn't find any posts with calcs in them - may look later when I get home..

Reaper

I doubt it. On average:

£1000 in Premium Bonds returns £1,032
£1000 on National Lottery returns £450 (Based on 45% of sales going into the prize fund)

It doesn't matter whether you buy a ticket direct or from the winnings on Premium Bonds. If you do the latter you are slashing your returns on the Premium Bonds. The odds are poor however you look at it.