Help the unaware student! please xx

Nick_W_3

I'm starting university in Oct and currently have a current account with RBS and have recently opened a mini cash ISA. I'm now interested in Martin Lewis' technique of deficit banking where i put my interest free overdraft from a student account into a savings account. So id have to open a student account and possibly another savings account as my ISA will over flow. Is there a limit to the amount of various types of accounts i can open??? thank you :money: :rolleyes:

robnye

there is a limit per financial year of £3K into a single ISA account

i think there is another account you can pay into as well, but not sure what its called

Broke_Student

Have you already maxed out your £3k allowance for your recently opened ISA?

Technically you can only open one student account as almost all banks have in their terms and conditions that your student loans/grants must get paid into it. However, I know of several cases of people opening more than one student account and just transfering the money across into the other account so to both banks it looks like there is a regular income.

If you want to make money off your overdraft, the accounts you will need are:
- Student account with overdraft facility
- Savings account to put your overdraft into (such as your ISA). For a student this would ideally be an instant access account as money is generally tight.
- Another current account for day to day spending and direct debits etc... as you will be unable to make much use of your student account if you want to leave it in an overdraft state.

When I go to uni next year, I will have a good setup with Natwest. My branch was encouraging me to open a student account with them in addition to the current account I already have (rather than just upgrading the account). I will also use a Natwest e-savings account. The advantage of this is that it is very easy to transfer money between the various accounts using their online banking facilities and transfers are faster as they are internal.

techno_geek

Broke_Student wrote:

Technically you can only open one student account as almost all banks have in their terms and conditions that your student loans/grants must get paid into it. However, I know of several cases of people opening more than one student account and just transfering the money across into the other account so to both banks it looks like there is a regular income.

Yes, "technically"... personally I have 3 student accounts: loan paid into one, parental funds into another, and my salary into the third one. I haven't got caught out yet! One account I "live on", and I have the other 2 account's overdrafts (totalling £3750) in a high interest savings account...

Instead of putting the money into an ISA paying 5-ish%, open an ICICI hi-save account (6.05% interest)... as long as you're a student and don't earn more than £5000 from any jobs you have then fill out an R85 form to get the interest paid tax-free! It's much better!

If the money needs to be repaid, you can transfer it in 3 working days which should be adequate.