Need help with savings.

millwalll

Hi All,
At the moment I have bits of money all over the place and want to try and get it so I earn the best interest possible.

I have a current account with Alliance and Leicester.
With that account I have saving account but this has 0 in at the moment.

I have ISA account with Kent Reliance.
I have a saving account with Tesco and an instant saver account with Abbey National.

Am I best to get rid of the saving account and put all the money into the ISA or are there any good saving accounts? I am currently saving for a deposit on a house so want to have my money working for me the best I can, I also want it to be flexible too.
There is a limited on the ISA once that hits the limit where the best location to put money in? Am I also best to arrange any direct debits to come out the end of the month will this help me earn more interest?

Thanks in advance.

bigadaj

Without numbers it's a bit difficult, but generally saving into your ISA will mean that the rate advertised is what you get, and you won't have the tax deducted.

Some of the best savings rates are for regular savings where you put in say £250 per month over a year, there's details on the site for these. The best of these are first direct and hsbc but you would need to have a current account with them and pay your salary into it.

opowell

MSE are featuring a Santander account which offers 3.2% but only for the next year. But it's instant access online with a £1 minimum deposit, so it's probably quite good for any "overflow" from your ISA.

droopsnoot

I found the best thing to do was to create a spreadsheet in Excel (or use Openoffice or whatever if you don't have Excel), list all the accounts you have, the balance in them, the current interest rate, and then a calculation to show how much interest you can expect over the next 12 months.

That way it's easy to change an interest rate and see how much difference it makes, and if you have money spread around you can see which is lagging behind in terms of income.

As bigadaj said, if you can put your annual limit into an ISA each tax year, you get the benefit of not paying tax on the interest, though keep an eye on them every year as interest rates have a habit of dropping after a period of time. Again, you can put a column in the spreadsheet for a date last checked, or date to next check, the interest rate. Banks don't tend to tell you when they drop rates.

CLAPTON

how much in each a/c
what is the current interest rate
if there is a 'bonus' when does it end and what will the new rate be?
how much of your current ISA allowance have you used

millwalll

The amount in each account varies and I don't have a clue of the interest rate.
The ISA I think is not a fixed amount paying in but the interest is variable on my last statement it says 0.77%
my current account is with santander
The Tesco account has about £500 I cant see rate on that but last statement says I earned about 1.20 interest
The Abbey account about £400 in and this account I had when I was 15 and as such my dad is still a trustee on it.

What I want is to have the ISA and just try pay as much as I can into that but I want a good backup account in case i go over my ISA quota.

Really appreciate the help

Is it a good idea to close an account if you not using it any more ?