How many current accounts do you have?

walesrob

Just one current account, HSBC. Did have a NatWest Select, but just closed it down, wasn't using it. I'm very low income (less than 8k), so theres not enough money to fund 2 accounts!

bsms1147

walesrob wrote: »

...so theres not enough money to fund 2 accounts!

If you have enough to fund one account you have enough to fund a hundred.

gallygirl

Just changed main account to Santa 123, purely for benefits.

Smile (ex main current acc) - mystery shopping money goes in there and I budget for the mystery shopping credit card. Excess is transferred to -

Nationwide flex - main account for btl properties and mortgage Op's

Nationwide Flex D - used as savings account for btl money.

Halifax - money in and straight out every month, leaving in cash for 2 DD's. Purely for £5 rewards (takes max of 5 mins a month all in, so £60 an hour :T.

FD - in and out again, to meet Reg Saver t&c's.

All in, quite easy to administer and I have just closed one :T

innovate

londoniana wrote: »

Why does one need more than one current account?

2 good reasons:

As has already been mentioned - as a safety net if there were a melt-down at Barclays. You got credit cards - but presumably they are being paid off from your Barclays account, so if Barclays was down for more than a month, you could be in serious trouble. After the NatWest/RBS/Ulster melt-down last year, an outage of several weeks is a real possibility.

The second good reason is that you can make more interest from current accounts than from savings accounts these days. Halifax Reward, Santander 123, Nationwide FlexDirect, Lloyds Vantage, BoS Vantage are all great places for saving money. Then there are HSBC and First Direct which have got great Regular Savers which pre-req a current account with them. Depending on how much money you have to stash away in savings, you could justify some 2 dozen current accounts.

If you have no savings to care about, a Santander 123 still beats the life out of a Barclays current account. So do the Flexdirect and the Vantage accounts, to some extent.

AlwaysLearnin

gallygirl wrote: »

FD - in and out again, to meet Reg Saver t&c's.

Why out again? An esaver with £1 in is a 'qualifying product', so with one you only need fund with however much you're putting in the reg saver.

gallygirl

AlwaysLearnin wrote: »

Why out again? An esaver with £1 in is a 'qualifying product', so with one you only need fund with however much you're putting in the reg saver.

The T&C's say you must hold a 1st Account. Basically I send money to Halifax, drop off £30 for DD's, send remainder to FD, drop off £300 and send the rest to NW FlexDirect. Then it has a well earned rest while I see where it needs to go next - currently 2 x £250 NW Reg Savers and balance to NW ISA. I find it easier to start off with one large sum and split as I go along rather than lots of in and outs from Santander.

AlwaysLearnin

I see. Fair enough

DragonQ

I have seven right now: 3x Vantage, 2x FlexDirect, 1x FlexAccount and 1x Halifax Reward. Five of these are used as savings accounts, one is my main account (the only one for which I carry a debit card), one I have solely for an ISA, and I will be closing one tomorrow.

MsSupertech

londoniana wrote: »

Why does one need more than one current account?

I have a Barclays current acct plus, savings account, and cash ISA (not much of a saver, I put money to the mortgage).

Barclaycard Simplicity, Halifax Clarity, and an MBNA platinum (which I'd close if it weren't my oldest CC). As I'm shopping at Tesco's I'm thinking about getting a tesco cc.

At the very least it's sensible to have one other account (current or instant access savings) with an ATM card for access to cash if your current account has IT problems.... (I wouldn't use my credit card for very small purchases. In fact some retailers charge a fee if you do.)

anotheruser

Total Accounts: 5
The total accounts I have

Main Accounts: 2
Accounts which I actually use

One-Purpose Accounts: 3
Accounts which I have for one purpose (IE, Tesco bank to help gain the Halifax reward

Credit Cards: 2
Will be going down to one shortly