Regular Savers - if you were me...

oldfella

IMHO a lot of these RS are not worth the hassle at the moment - the net gain after basic rate tax of the Halifax 7% is about £15pa compared with 5.7% from a normal savings account. And you loose a further £1.50pa in the transfer between accounts.

Mike

gelato_cat

Mike, I was thinking the same. My methodology is different in that I use "new" money (ie my salary). I have a Halifax current account so lose nothing transferring it to the Halifax RS. As far as I'm concerned, I lose nothing in transferring to my YBS and A&L accounts as I would have transferred it out of the Halifax anyway to Icesave or somewhere (so an inevitable loss) but I do lose extra money transferring from A&L to feed the Lloyds one.

Halifax current -> Halifax RS
Halifax current -> A&L current (min £500 deposit per month) -> half to A&L RS and half to Lloyds RS

My question to Afahmaep is how much interest is lost in his 20+ transfers cf the interest he is gaining?

Suze

oldfella wrote: »

IMHO a lot of these RS are not worth the hassle at the moment - the net gain after basic rate tax of the Halifax 7% is about £15pa compared with 5.7% from a normal savings account. And you loose a further £1.50pa in the transfer between accounts.

Mike

gelato_cat

Afahmaep wrote:

I've got 32 Regular Savers on the go using EXACTLY your above observation.

Bloody hell, how do you cope with the admin? I had to set up a spreadsheet when I had three!!!

Afahmaep wrote:

One Regular Saver not mentioned in this thread is the Monmouthshire BS 6.25% offering which allows £1000 per month to be saved with no confirmed end date. If a new Regular Saver isn't announced during April I will increase my £250 per month currently going in up to this maximum.

That sounds like a good one - can it be operated online? And have you noticed the interest rate rising when base does?

Which high interest savings account do you drip feed from?

Suze

gelato_cat

Afahmaep wrote:

I don't use just one account. I am fortunate to have and use 6 Current Accounts. This allows me to fulfil the funding requirements for each one to keep them open as they all have differing criteria ranging from £500 to £1000 and to obtain some 'in-house' Regular Savers (e.g. HSBC). The latest one I am using is the Halifax 6.1% High Interest Account which does however require £1000 per month credit (non salary) but will mean I can keep £2500 there (the maximum allowed to earn the high rate) and top back up once the SOs come out which I will conveniently arrange to be exactly £1000.

I take it the interest lost while money is in transit is not worth worrying about then?

Afahmaep wrote:

If I had to start from scratch today I would start with the Halifax BS 7.00% and then the Leek BS 7.50% and then Principality BS 6.50%. Why that order and those. Halifax for the 6.1% account and Regular Saver (£250 PM) which is easily operated and repeatable. I'm into my 3rd year. Leek BS (£250PM) for the windfall/merger opportunity and to put through the Halifax Account and then the Principality BS (£500 PM) for the windfall/merger opportunity and to put through Halifax.

Thanks for the info. If windfall opportunities are lower down the list of priorities, which ones would you recommend interest-rate wise (Leek looks good!)? If I'm recycling my money I don't need access to the funds but I would like to be able to access the account details online.

Suze

stphnstevey

bristolleedsfan wrote: »

re dripfeeding to reg monthly saver, what martin means to get the maximum benefit from a monthly saver you want the savings you have to be earning as high a rate of interest as possible while its waiting to be fed into your monthly saver (s) not sitting in either a current account earning next to nothing nore in a low paying branch based instant access account. eg principality e saver pays 5.60% gross on 1.00+ and allows unlimited no of "linked accounts" ( linked accounts are sub detailed account details u give eg yorkshire bs sortcode/account no/your yorkshire BS account no so your savings are earning 5.60% gross while its waiting to be filtered to say your yorkshire BS monthly saver when it then earns 7% gross. someone might say theres a savings account paying more than 5.60% gross thats quite possible im merely giving an example. in my own case i opened a leeds BS loyalty members account in early march which gives no penalty access upon 60 days notice currently paying 6.25 Gross ( inc 1.25 gross bonus guaranteed until 3112.07) so my plan is to feed my lowest paying saving account balances ( all above 5.25%) into my highest paying reg savers accounts then feed the 6000 i have in leeds BS account over a period of approx 5 months also into my highest paying regular savings accounts before 311207

ill let other poster explain his recycling of savings techniques,some regular savings accounts get opened as virtual no loss carpetbagging chances ie 100.00 balance maintained at all times putting minimum monthly payments required into it and taking advantage of the 1/2 withdrawals allowed each year to get the full rate of interest while maintaining 100.00 in the account. these withdrawals can be used to either fund new regular savings accounts or used as payments for higher paying existing regular savers. Depending on how much capital u have would put the most per month into the highest paying monthly savers, some of these you arent allowed to touch for 12 months and at end of 12 months they mature, the capital sum can be resplit to either fund new regular savers or to fund existing regular savers

i personally have just 16 regular savers and dont bother with regular savers that finish after 12 months, 2 of these i filter 1250 a month into rest i either pay the minimum into to meet the accounts conditions and earn the highest rate of interest or if allowed put extra payments into the next highest paying regular monthly savings account :cool:

Why bother cycling money around reguler savers? Surely your losing interest while the money is in transit, that makes any gain you would receive not worthwhile?

Also, why so many RS's? That would be a nightmare to track and you would probably not have enough money to take advantage of the highest interest RS payers? Why not make the maximum contributions to the best RS's?

Also, most Building Societies make you sign a charitable statement so any windfall in a merger would go to charity, so no gain there either!

I would also be interested in a list of 16 RS's that last longer than 12 months as 75% of the ones I know are only 12 months long!

airwalk

Hi can some one also pm me the list please.
Thanks

stphnstevey

bristolleedsfan wrote: »

ive pm u the list, few points i didnt answer in pm, i didnt say i recycled money from all the reg savers i have so i dont need to track them, i was answering another posters point about "recycling money", top paying reg savers loughborough and yorkshire are funded from non reg savers saving accounts

most accounts ive had since 1996 before charitable agreement, charitable agreements were introduced to stop members launching an attempt to force a society to convert and have been disregarded in recent mergers

Thanks for the comprehensive reply in your PM! (Others might well find it useful, so I am not sure why you only PM me and didn't post it?)

It sounds like your main objective was the possible windfalls from mergers rather than the rates themselves (as quite a few of them have rates that are less than the easier instant access savings account option of around 5.8%).

The windfall approach may not now be possible
due to the charitable sign off, but you might know more than me here.

Therefore I think the original starter of this thread would benefit from budgetting to maxmise the highest rate (or longterm/high contribution) RS's and work down from there, limited by how much they can save.

In this case, I think opening 16 to 30 RS's with the minimum contributions and/or recycling money around them would not be worthwhile.

ED

Suzey wrote ''I do lose extra money transferring from A&L to feed the Lloyds one.'' Do you have time, each month, to deposit cash over-the-counter to Lloyds current account? You could set up an Internal Standing Order of the £ from current account to Regular Saver.

CLAPTON

have you considered the nationwide regular saver 250 per month at 6.25% but no specific end date

you need to open a N/W current a/c but you dont need to use it (other than to feed the saving a/c ) nor need any specific funding.

and as a bonus, if you travel abroad at all, their debit card doesnot have any foreign currency fees if you use it abroad.

bristolleedsfan

CLAPTON wrote: »

have you considered the nationwide regular saver 250 per month at 6.25% but no specific end date

you need to open a N/W current a/c but you dont need to use it (other than to feed the saving a/c ) nor need any specific funding.

and as a bonus, if you travel abroad at all, their debit card doesnot have any foreign currency fees if you use it abroad.

you have to consider that with nationwide reg saver if u miss a payment for any reason at all or any month u dont make a 200-250 payment then u get a lower rate for that month , there are a number of other building society reg savers that pay 6.25%-7% on 15-20.00 to 500.00 a month or even 1000.00 a month without such clawbacks once you are "hooked" :rolleyes:

yep nationwide flexi account with debit card is very good ( not sure if it would be worth paying a monthly fee for though :rotfl: )

here it is apparent " proud to be different" reg saver from nationwide, apparent fortune has been spent advertising it on peak time tv, wonder what the small savers make of it :rolleyes: wonder what the large savers make of it :rolleyes:

"How interest works
Tony is saving up for a deposit on his first home. So he decides to pay in £150 a month by regular transfer from his current account, and earns 5.75% (gross p.a./AER) interest on his savings. But he's not tied to that amount. As the following table shows, our Regular Savings account is flexible enough to adapt as his financial circumstances change.

Monthly increase in balance Total balance Rate applied to total balance that month (Gross p.a./AER)
Jan Pays in £150 £150 £150 5.75%
Feb Pays in bonus of £100 on top of regular £150 £250 £400 6.25% :j
Mar Regular payment of £150 £150 £550 5.75%
Apr Regular payment of £150 followed by a withdrawal of £100 £50 £600 4.25%
May Regular payment of £150 £150 £750 5.75%

or this example :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Anna wants to save towards the cost of a family holiday. She decides to save £100 a month into the account and earns 5.75% (gross p.a./AER) on the balance of her account. But again the account gives her flexibility to reduce her payment or, with Christmas looming, even cancel her payments and make a couple of withdrawals, before starting to save again.

Monthly increase in balance Total balance Rate applied to total balance that month (Gross p.a./AER)
May Pays in £100 £100 £100 5.75%
Jun Pays in £100 £100 £200 5.75%
Jul Jul Pays in £50 £50 £250 4.25%
Aug Pays in £100 £100 £350 5.75%
Sep Pays in £100 £100 £450 5.75%
Oct Pays in £100 £100 £550 5.75%
Nov Withdraws £50 - £500 4.25%
Dec Withdraws £100 - £400 4.25%
Jan Pays in £100 £100 £500 5.75%

Annual Equivalent Rate (AER) is a notional rate which illustrates the contractual rate as if paid and compounded on an annual basis.