Joint account recommendation

davehills

Hi All,

Looking to switch to a new joint account. We use this to pay the mortgage and bills.

At the moment we have an account with the Halifax, which requires a minimum of £500 to be paid in. Trouble is, there's only about £350 going out per month.

Hfx pay virtually no interest on this account; it's inconvenient to take the surplus out and there is a delay on the money going in and the surplus being available which makes budgeting difficult.

Also, the service from hfx has been rubbish over the years so we'd like to move it elsewhere.

We're therefore looking for a new joint account:

-£300 (Or less) pay in per month
-Easy to transfer direct debits from Hfx account
-Cheque book
-Interest on the balance (~£4k)
-Easy to manage (Online?)

Any recommendations?

jonesMUFCforever

OK first things first
1 You won't get a lot of interest on £150 even after a year.
2 How is it inconvenient to take surplus out - faster payments makes it very easy.
3 Why not downgrade the Halifax to one that does not require a monthly minimum credit?
4 Don't know why your payments in are delayed - how do you pay them in? Anything other than by cheque (ie standing order, cash or faster payments) should be cleared immediately.

To answer your question all banks will give you what you want as long as you do not submit to their own agenda ie - tell them what you want not let them advise you!

So back to you - which bank/branch is convenient to use if you have too - then have a look at their websites and you're off.

innovate

Santander 123 could fit the bill. It costs £2/mth but you might get more cashback on your bills, and it pays relatively decent interest, provided you pay in £500 a month (doesn't have to be £500 in one go). It's also still on Quidco for a £55 signup bonus http://www.quidco.com/santander-123-current-account/?ac

Another account that you can bag a signup bonus for (£100) is First Direct - but they pay 0% interest on the current account. You would have access to their Regular Saver @ 8% though - - you can pay in £300 max a month. Not sure they'd let you have 2 Regular Savers if it's a joint account. http://www2.firstdirect.com/1/2/?WT.mc_id=PSR0000007&WT.Srch=1

I am surprised you don't seem to get the "free fiver" a month from Halifax - - it requires £1K/mth to be paid in, but that could be achieved with e.g. 4 x £250.

Lloyds Vantage usually pays 3% interest on balances between £3K and £5K, provided you pay in £1K a month (again, doesn't have to be in one go). They have a special offer if you meet some further pre-reqs (2 Direct Debits on the account) by the end of this month. They will then pay 4% for a year if your balance is between £5K and £6K. If you wanted to go for that, you'd need to move fast now . http://www.lloydstsb.com/current_accounts/vantage4.asp

All accounts should do what you want them to do. Some offer switching service - - on First Direct you would have to use it to get the £100. On the others, it's optional - - personally, I would do the transfer of the DDs myself because you have to monitor them anyway. It's dead easy to transfer a DD - just tell the relevant company that they should be taking the money from a different bank account.

YorkshireBoy

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

1 You won't get a lot of interest on £150 even after a year.

£21 after tax from savings of £150 per month in a 3% account.

davehills

Just to clarify:

- The existing Hfx account was set up some years ago, it was a condition of getting an Hfx mortgage. One of the conditions was that we have to pay in £500 pm.

- We no longer have an Hfx mortgage thus can change accounts.

- I pay £500 in monthly. This is supposed to arrive on the 1st of every month. However, Hfx have messed this up more than once meaning it arrives late causing problems!

- Hfx have said they can't guarantee any of the £500 will be there to draw against for 3 working days..if the 1st is a Saturday, the money might not be there until the following wed/thu..

- I don't want to have to pay £500 in, just to go through all the headaches and heartache of drawing out £200 every month. I'd much prefer to pay in just the £300+ and have done with it.

- Outgoings from the account are around £300+ pm.

davehills

innovate wrote: »

All accounts should do what you want them to do.

Except that I don't want to be paying in more than £300 to £350 per month.

innovate

Just put a couple of standing orders up for the same, say, £300 a month. 2 x £300 satisfies the £500pm, 4 x £300 does the £1K/mth. So you could satisfy e.g. both the Santander and the Halifax easily, and collect the £60 from Halifax in the process.

innovate

davehills wrote: »

- Hfx have said they can't guarantee any of the £500 will be there to draw against for 3 working days..if the 1st is a Saturday, the money might not be there until the following wed/thu..

Yes, that is normal - all banks do it like that. You just need to allow 3 or 4 days between arrival and departure.

davehills wrote: »

- I don't want to have to pay £500 in, just to go through all the headaches and heartache of drawing out £200 every month.

Set up proper standing orders once and then forget it. I have been cycling £1K through 7 accounts each month for over 2 years and never had a problem.

princessdon

On an aside I'd love to know how you manage to have under £350 pm as outgoings. Do you have another account that pays things out or are you just very frugal. My Council Tax and Leccy are that alone.

davehills

innovate wrote: »

Set up proper standing orders once and then forget it.

I don't want to do that for two reasons.

Fisrtly Hfx have messed up before, either debiting money twice or not doing it at all and I have had to pick up the pieces. Once bitten, etc..

Secondly, I can't afford to be without the money for the 3-5 days (Or whatever) that it will spend working its way through the system.

davehills

princessdon wrote: »

On an aside I'd love to know how you manage to have under £350 pm as outgoings. Do you have another account that pays things out or are you just very frugal. My Council Tax and Leccy are that alone.

Well, that's an approx average over the space of a year.

That amount is mortgage, insurance, gas, elec, water, council tax only.

Total living expenses would be far in excess of that figure; that figure is essentially the running cost of the house only. Phone, broadband, food etc..etc gets paid directly.

We are (Reasonably) frugal. We also have the advantage that we bought when houses were cheap and knocked the price down further, due to horrid decor so the mortgage is low.