Intelligent finance interest dropped - are there any other accounts with savings jars

jblackmore

I've been using Intelligent Finance for years and years, initially I had a car loan which was offset, then they dropped that, but I love the savings jars, and I have about 7 for car, house, kids stuff etc which I pay into every month and can then fund the insurance/tax/shoes as required.

They keep squeezing interest, just had a letter dropping from 1.8% to 1.2%, but I love the convenience of the savings jars.

Does anyone know of any other online accounts which have this setup ??

bowlhead99

This came up last week actually: forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4588949

I like the idea but not many places do it. Lloyds and probably others allow you to have multiple accounts and customise the name of an account as it displays in the online website - so for some time I had cash in my Holiday Savings separate from my General Savings Annual Interest and my MonthlyInterestBonusRanOut.

They all had my home sort code but different acct numbers having been opened at different times over the years. I also never kept over £0.01 in the Bad Savings Account (named for reminder of the 0.1% interest which I shouldn't use even though I couldn't be bothered to close it). Later I ended up having two current accounts with different bits of the bank and different overdraft facilities with names to suit.

Anyway, all that's very nice but you generally get more interest on larger balances and the accounts with the best online features don't always pay the best rate. Which leads you to just split it yourself on a spreadsheet as Innovate suggests on the other thread. You can beat 1.2%, sometimes even in current accounts if you can meet their T&Cs, and these days when most accounts are online and Faster Payments exist it's not too hard to run different physical accounts if you want the separate statements.

jblackmore

Thanks, just checked and lloyds pay even less so maybe 1.2% isn't as dreadful as I thought.

innovate

Thing is, you can beat any savings account interest rate with those of a number of current accounts these days. It's weird but true.

To benefit, you have to, may be, move a little outside your normal comfort zone, and look for the accounts that pay the most interest, rather than for a savings account. 3% AER is dead easy to get, and even 5% AER is not out of reach for the next 12 months. Why settle for sub-2% AER?

The "pot" idea is essential for anyone who has an organised financial life, but you don't need a bank to provide you with the pots. As I said before, just run a simple spreadsheet (or a list of areas and numbers on a sheet of paper) and manage your pots for yourself.