Dilemma re Icesave/savings in general

gelato_cat

Hi all

I've been reviewing my finances recently and a few things have changed since I last asked for advice on here - I'm currently debating whether or not to move a load more cash to my Icesave account! I have been one of the lucky ones who hasn't had any problems opening my account or needed to ring/e-mail them. Only problem I've had was not being able to log into my account the other week, which scared me a bit - and I spose is why I'm not giving them all my money straightaway.

At present this is how everything sits:

Halifax High Interest Current Account - 5.12%: £600-something (salary goes in here and regular savers get paid out of it)
Icesave - 5.70%: £22123.66
BoS IASA - 5.25% on balances over £5k: £9350.00
Halifax ISA Saver Direct - 5.25%: £24572.76
NS&I Direct ISA - 5.80%: £3000.00
Halifax Regular Saver - 7.00%: £2500.00 (£250.00 goes in every month)
A&L Regular Saver - 12.00%: £750.00 (£250.00 goes in every month)
Lloyds Regular Saver - 8.00%: £1750.00 (£250.00 goes in every month)
HSBC Online Saver - 5.00%: £500.00 (coming out when I get my John Lewis voucher)
Halifax Web Saver - 5.00% (variable): £1.00
Sainsbury's Bank Internet Saver - 5.00%: £1.00
ING - 4.75%: £0


I think I'm going to keep the following as is:
- Halifax current account
- NS&I ISA
- All three regular savers
- Icesave
- Sainsbury's/Halifax/ING web savers (there in case I need them)

I'm closing the HSBC account when I receive my John Lewis voucher (but am a little worried as lots of people have received theirs and I haven't heard anything yet). Not sure yet where I will move the money to - probably Halifax in the first instance.

The bit I am umming and ahhing over is mainly the BoS IASA. It's attractive as it pays 5.25% until October this year or something like that - and I can also move money between it and my current account instantly which means I always have money readily available if I need it. I am going to need to take out a couple of thousand soon to pay a credit card bill and another £5k in May. Until then, I'm not sure whether to move it to my Icesave account as I quite like having easy access to it.

I'm also not sure what to do about my Halifax ISA. Again, I have easy access to the money but really all I want is a high interest ISA with no withdrawal penalties as I probably won't need to touch these funds.

Any ideas?

Suze

YorkshireBoy

Suzey wrote:

Any ideas?

Just a couple of observations.

If you're looking to continue with the regular saver strategy, you could kill two birds with one stone at YBS. You could move your BoS IASA lump sum to their Internet Saver account (currently 5.3% but BOE increase to come?), and drip feed the 6.75% regular saver (again, an increase pending?) with £500 per month. The Internet Saver comes with a link card, should you need some cash in a hurry.

To save on admin, you could feed your Halifax regular saver via a SO from a websaver account. Just dump £3K in at the start of the year.

Re the ISA's, I'm waiting to see what YBS & Halifax do before deciding whether to stay with Halifax or not. At the moment, YBS is 0.15% better and if this is maintained, or improved, I'm off!

realaledrinker

Given that you have over £20K in your Icesave account, why are you thinking of withdrawing money out of tax-free ISAs ??

gelato_cat

Not thinking of withdrawing - just changing to a better ISA

Suze

realaledrinker wrote:

Given that you have over £20K in your Icesave account, why are you thinking of withdrawing money out of tax-free ISAs ??

pbw

Suzey wrote:

Not thinking of withdrawing - just changing to a better ISA

Suze

not sure if you know or not. you can only transfer ISAs, you cannot withdraw then re-invest...if you see what i mean?

gelato_cat

Yes - realise that.

cheers!

Suze

pbw wrote:

not sure if you know or not. you can only transfer ISAs, you cannot withdraw then re-invest...if you see what i mean?

gelato_cat

YorkshireBoy wrote:

If you're looking to continue with the regular saver strategy, you could kill two birds with one stone at YBS. You could move your BoS IASA lump sum to their Internet Saver account (currently 5.3% but BOE increase to come?), and drip feed the 6.75% regular saver (again, an increase pending?) with £500 per month.

Sounds better than keeping it with the Halifax, I have to agree. Time I stopped being loyal/lazy I think!

YorkshireBoy wrote:

The Internet Saver comes with a link card, should you need some cash in a hurry.

That would be useful too.

YorkshireBoy wrote:

To save on admin, you could feed your Halifax regular saver via a SO from a websaver account. Just dump £3K in at the start of the year.

I could... I'd just have to free up £3k from somewhere! At the moment everything comes out of my current account and I have to pay a lot of attention to what's going on as I'm being paid twice a month as well.

The IASA money will be mostly gone come May/June as I've made the decision to pay off a CC debt that's been sitting on 0% cards since 2003 (current offer finishes in May) - there's no way I'm paying balance transfer fees to keep it at 0%. Also, due to a f*** up by my train company when I went to renew my season ticket, I have to pay all of that off in full this month too (it should have gone on a 0% card - NOT happy about that one)! So those two combined means £8670 of the £9350 will be gone (but I do save at least £750 a month so hopefully it won't be too painful). I think with the difference in interest rates, I'd probably best keep it in the IASA for now rather than move it anywhere and lose the interest on one BACS transfer out of the Halifax and another back in when I need it to pay the bills.

YorkshireBoy wrote:

Re the ISA's, I'm waiting to see what YBS & Halifax do before deciding whether to stay with Halifax or not. At the moment, YBS is 0.15% better and if this is maintained, or improved, I'm off!

Definitely looks like one of the better buys out there. How long are you going to wait before you transfer in?

Suze

YorkshireBoy

Suzey wrote:

Definitely looks like one of the better buys out there. How long are you going to wait before you transfer in?

I 'understand' that YBS will be announcing their rate changes on 1st Feb (and Halifax usually go for the 1st of the month following BOE rate rise), so I guess within a fortnight I'll be in a position to decide.

DocProc

Suzey



With all due respect to your openness, which is actually refreshingly quite nice, aren't you being just a tadge bit naive on here in giving such accurate personal information out to all and sundry?

You tell everyone exactly how much you have, even down to the penny, in your Icesave and Halifax accounts.

Moneysaving expert.com isn't a secure site. Posts done on it by members/subscribers do show up on the Search results requested by anyone on a Google search.

Try it for yourself. Just pop your Moneysavingexpert.com Username into Google and then click on 'Search'. Then scroll down the list of Search results looking for those pertinent to moneysavngexpert.com

gelato_cat

Thanks for your concern, but what exactly do you envisage someone can do with this information? Not a lot, I'd imagine...

Suze

DocProc wrote:

Suzey



With all due respect to your openness, which is actually refreshingly quite nice, aren't you being just a tadge bit naive on here in giving such accurate personal information out to all and sundry?

You tell everyone exactly how much you have, even down to the penny, in your Icesave and Halifax accounts.

Moneysaving expert.com isn't a secure site. Posts done on it by members/subscribers do show up on the Search results requested by anyone on a Google search.

Try it for yourself. Just pop your Moneysavingexpert.com Username into Google and then click on 'Search'. Then scroll down the list of Search results looking for those pertinent to moneysavngexpert.com

DocProc

I don't want to be rude or too inquisitive and I most certainly don't want to be patronising

But these are the days when shredders are greatly in fashion because of 'Identity Theft'. Integrate into this stuff the question:

How do you deal with the contents of your wheelie bin?

I ask, because over a period of time, those characters who do make use of personal information for their ill-gotten gains, will build up a very thorough picture of you and yours. Then 'bang!' They will pounce. How? I don't know.

What I do know is that it is generally not a good idea to give out personal information as openly, accurately and profusely as you are doing.

How can you possible keep control? How would you deal with it if anything did go wrong and you did have funds stolen from you?

Also, if others, less security conscious than you see you openly posting up personal information, then it's as though a 'fashion' has been set for it. They feel it's OK to do it, then others feel it's OK to do it, etc, etc.

I hope you will reconsider?

I concede immediately that it has absolutely nothing to do with me and you are entitled to post up what you like. It's just that my strongly altruistic nature insists I tell on here about what I know or strongly feel. It's a bit like seeing the car in front has got a flat tyre and the driver is not experienced/aware and doesn't know about it. I don't want the driver to crash and all I have to do is tell him/her about it.

When I did a Google search and investigated my own postings on here, I was shocked and began to tone down my own openness down quite a lot.

Anyhow. There you go. I've said my piece.