Money in lots of accounts... How do you keep track?!

Onawingandaprayer

http://www.ybs.co.uk/help/online/money-manager/index.html

It replaced Egg Money Manager, which I'd used for years.

Though, looking at the T&Cs it now looks as if you need a YBS account. Didn't used to be the case, when they took over the Egg service.

evenasus

M0ney wrote: »

I think the whole thing about having the ISA is over-rated, my ISA pays me 1%, OK it's not the best I could get 2.5% maybe 3% at a push but I have a regular saver with First Direct and they're paying me 8% gross when the account matures that's still over 6% after tax and they're letting me open another in January once the year has ended with the first one and the interest rate on it will be 6% gross again well over 4% after tax. So what's the point in an ISA? Especially for someone with ~£5k which is less than the annual deposit limit.

A regular savings account paying 6% on a monthly saving of £300 a month, over 12 months equates to an annual interest rate of 3.22% gross - 2.58% after basic tax.

MEM62

If you stick it in the Nat West E-ISA you'll currently get 1.75% AER

M0ney

evenasus wrote: »

A regular savings account paying 6% on a monthly saving of £300 a month, over 12 months equates to an annual interest rate of 3.22% gross - 2.58% after basic tax.

So you've proved my point the regular saver I have at 8% is far better than any 1 year fixed term ISA available.

The same approximate "halving" of the interest rate also applies if you are starting a new ISA and making regular payments into it. Granted this isn't the situation for the person who originally posted...

danthemoneysavingman

I use AccountUnity, very good aggregator and also includes utilities, phone companies, ebay, paypal, and many others.

But to keep track of maturity dates, when to switch etc, a spreadsheet and use of the Tart Alert for all sorts of things is very handy, imho

chris_m

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Microsoft excel spreadsheet

Ditto - plus an old version of Quicken.

The latter to keep track of the details of all my transactions and the former to summarise them and give me forecasting "what if scenarios" for assessing how my early retirement plans are looking - Excel macros are great!!

evenasus

M0ney wrote: »

So you've proved my point the regular saver I have at 8% is far better than any 1 year fixed term ISA available.

The same approximate "halving" of the interest rate also applies if you are starting a new ISA and making regular payments into it. Granted this isn't the situation for the person who originally posted...

I was pointing out that you wouldn't have received an aer of 8% gross. It would actually be 4.28% gross.
Or to be precise 4.2825%

ChopperST

evenasus wrote: »

I was pointing out that you wouldn't have receive an aer of 8% gross. It would actually be 4.28% gross.

Pleased someone corrected the actual return of regular savers. They are headline rate products for the banks to trick people into thinking they are getting 6% AER on their savings. For a basic rate tax payer it would just about keep pace with inflation, little else...

evenasus

chris_m wrote: »

Ditto - plus an old version of Quicken.

I'm still using Quicken 2001 without a problem.

There are some for sale on Ebay which are cheap. Only from the USA though.

innovate

I track all my transactions, with the exception of cash purchases, in MS Money. Microsoft have long stopped supporting in but the 2003 version I have does everything I need it to do. I think you can still get it on amazon and probably also eBay.

To log into my many accounts, I use AccountUnity.

To track bonus / offer / fixed rate expiry dates, I use a spreadsheet.