Short Term Savings - the best account?

Eliza252

Have read through a load of threads on the board and am still umming about which instant access savings account to use!
Here is the situation:
I have a graduate loan with Barclays for £2000 which I am contracted to pay off with a fixed direct debit payment every month, for 18 months.
I have a part time job (on top of my full time job) which brings in about £200-300 a month - all of this money is to contribute towards paying off my graduate loan so hopefully I can pay it off within 6-8 months.
However, Barclays have told me that I cannot make one off payments to reduce the loan amount - I may only change the size of the direct debit.
I am reluctant to do this as the amount of extra cash I earn each month changes, if one month I was unable to carry out my extra work it would cause problems.
Equally I do not want to leave the money I am saving up to pay off the grad loan sitting in my account - I am at the end of a £1500 interest free overdraft, which I dont want Barcllays to start reducing until I have paid off my grad loan and it also seems a waste of a potential short term interest earner.
I figured that the best thing to do would be to put the money I am pooling to pay off the debt into a savings account and then when I have the full £2000 (or less by the time I've made some direct debit payments) I can pay it all off in one go.
I therefore need a savings account that is very quick to access; that I can make regular payments into although not necessarily very many withdrawls. My money would also not be in there for very long and obviously wouldnt be a very large amount.
I have looked at a few mini cash ISA'a but I am very nervous about the amount of time it takes to withdrawl the money - First Direct for instance have to send you a check which will take weeks. I see there is some iffy feedback for A&Ls instant access saver which I thought was the next best option.
Any suggestions with regards to my situation would be very helpful - sorry for the length of the message!!!!

grumbler

Eliza252 wrote:

I see there is some iffy feedback for A&Ls instant access saver which I thought was the next best option.

If you want full flexibility and instant access A&L Online Saver is your best choice. I do not know what 'iffy feedback' you mean. However, even for the full amount of £2000 0.35% difference makes just £7 per year before tax. There are a lot of other easy-access saving accounts around with 5%. For example, Nationwide e-savings account. If you are not going to repay loan during next 12 months and can sacrifice easy access Halifax regular saver with 7% is better choice for £25-£250 savings per month. It needs a Standing Order on you current account, but usually you can correct amount (and date) of the Standing Order online as often as you want, i.e. every month.