Best Account to pay in wages

Highland_Lass_2

I would like to open a new account to pay in my wages from my job (it's only part-time). I take home about £420/month. Any advice on a good account to open would be appreciated. I'd be happy to leave the money in without making many withdrawals.

Graham_Devon

You'd need a current account to accept the wages. A savings account would not be suitable to get wages paid in. So you would need to pay your wages into your current account and then transfer however much you want to into a savings account, whether it be online or in branch.

The above current account is no good for you, you need to earn at least £6500 per year, which your current wages don't cover.

An ICICI or ICESAVE account paying 5.45% gross would be a good bet and you can make as many withdrawals as you like.

The above accounts however have many problems associated with them, just reading the boards here will show that. Some people have no problems at all though. I have had non with ICICI apart from taking some time to set up, ICESAVE has been a complete nightmare for me and I've given up.

Other than that, in my experience, the ones paying the base rate and based in the UK offer decent enough services (Cahoot and Egg come to mind). Sainsburys might also be ok, not looked into it much .

Then there are regular savers, paying up to 12% gross, but you can only put in a limited amount per month (usually £250).

If you have not already get an ISA, forget everything I have said, get yourself over to https://www.nsandi.com and sign yourself up for a direct ISA. Pays 5.55%, tax free, only problem for some is you get your interest yearly. But you get more of it. You can only put in £3000 per year, and once it's in, if you withdraw it, thats it for that tax year. You can drip feed money in, but you can only ever transfer up to £3000 per year. If you don't use your ISA you lose it. So if you put in £3000 this year, you can put ni another £3000 next year, making 5.55% (or whatever the rate is at that point) on the £6000. You can never get the lost years back.

System

You could get a Woolwich Card Saver account.

It would give you a cashpoint/ electron debit card.

It would also give you 3.20% gross.

It comes with a standard sort code/ account number that you could give your employer.

http://www.personal.barclays.co.uk/BRC1/jsp/brccontrol?task=articleFWwealth&site=pfs&value=9566&menu=5019

P.S. - You can use any savings account which can give you an account number/sort code, if your employer pays you directly. They will simply put the sort/account number into their payroll system, just like a current account.

Highland_Lass_2

Thanks for the help. Think I'm going to look along the lines of the ISA suggested. Have only ever once put money into one.