Help organising/consolidating my bank accounts, please!

timmah86

So my banks are a mess! I seem to have loads of them. Here's a list, with the reasons why I have them:

1. RBS Student Account - for the £2000 free overdraft. Graduated a year ago but they seem to have totally overlooked that fact! No word at all about it changing to a Grad account. Use as my general current account.

2. Santander 123 - For the cash back - use it to pay for my rent/bills as I live in a shared flat and would prefer to keep these expenses separate to my personal money.

3. Nationwide FlexAccount - for the free travel insurance. Also have a loan with Nationwide but that is soon to be paid off. Not used for finances.

4. Virgin Money - 2.4% ISA with £10k in it.

5. LloydsTSB - have an Avios Duo credit card and do most of my spending on it. Like to feel I get a little something back!

6. Santander Zero credit card - for fee free travel - which I use fairly often.

I am almost always in credit in my current account. I pay my credit card off every month without fail. I earn a pretty good salary (about 40k)

I am looking for ideas as to how to consolidate these accounts - was thinking about opening a First Direct account as they are supposedly amazing but don't feel like I want to give up any of the others in favour of it. Is there any bank which offers good savings, good travel fees, an overdraft etc?

Any ideas much appreciated!

Tim

rb10

The list you have seems pretty reasonable.

There's a lot of hype about First Direct, but I don't personally think they're that great. And it'll just complicate matters having another account to deal with. You are much better off using Santander/Nationwide/Halifax/Lloyds for day-to-day banking.

Your RBS account will presumably be the first to go, once the interest free overdraft is removed.

(You could always get a free £125 from First Direct ... pick one of your accounts that doesn't have any standing orders / direct debits on it, set up two standing orders to other accounts in your name, then open a First Direct account and 'switch' from the old account. Then close the First Direct account once they've paid you the £125).

timmah86

Great, thanks for your input. Yes, the RBS account will go as soon as the deposit is pulled. The one I could get rid of now is the Nationwide account - is the free travel insurance worth keeping it for?

I was thinking about doing that with the First Direct account but don't you have to pay in £1000 for 3 months first?

Archi_Bald

timmah86 wrote: »

I was thinking about doing that with the First Direct account but don't you have to pay in £1000 for 3 months first?

No you don't - you have to pay in £1K within the first 3 months. Big difference. And nobody says you have to pay £1K in in one go.

SamDubs

To be honest this looks like a pretty savvy mix of products and I suspect most people in your financial situation will have a similar profile - Good rate cash ISA / Rewards CCs for daily spending and a couple of bank accounts, probably giving you preferential rates on other products such as your Nationwide Loan. You will struggle to find any single product that provides you with a combination of the benefits you have, especially without fee-paying.

I agree that if you do want to streamline, one of the Current Accounts could go. If you never use your RBS overdraft and they otherwise offer you nothing, you could just move your day-to-day to the Nationwide account.

You mention you travel frequently (hence your Santander Zero) - as long as you stay within Europe and don't do Winter Sports then the free Nationwide travel insurance is probably quite a good deal for you and I wouldn't rush to close it. (You can extend your cover for a fairly reasonable price too).

Also worth considering is how much the 123 account yields for you in terms of annual cashback - although I suspect it's probably enough to be worth the effort.

You seem pretty financially switched on - I would be interested to know what you decide.

CLAPTON

having three bank a/c seems very sensible, especially if you travel a lot and have ever had your debit card reject for no particular reason:

plus of course the muckups the various banks have made (cf RBS systems down for over a week, Nationwide off air for 2 days, ATMs not working properly)
and the possibility of losing a card

my main recommendation would be to get at least 3 credit cards both for resilience (as above) and benefits like cashback or points , airmiles etc

anoncol

MoneyInTheBank wrote: »

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of job do you have that pays 40k? I clearly picked the wrong degree :sad:

A programmer here.

timmah86

Thanks to everyone for the input. Seems like I'm not that far off in terms of having a good mix of accounts. Like some of you pointed out I think it would be fairly hard to get a single account that covers all the bases. I'll probably stick with what I use for now, scrap the RBS account when (if ever!) the OD disappears and get something like the First Direct account.


MoneyInTheBank - I'm an FY2 Doctor