FinancialBliss: My hurty to thirty savings diary…

financialbliss

Background.
I’m about to find myself in a situation that I’ve not been in since my mid 20’s – no debt and no mortgage. Well, that’s next month!

Have been slow stoozing and paying off just over the minimum balance on credit cards, which freed up funds to pay off mortgage. Now mortgage free and have a mix of stoozed and active credit card debt of just £3,879.63 as of today to pay off. :eek:

Don’t have the funds to pay this off right now – that’s the “hurty”.

Have a regular saver maturing tomorrow of £3,250 plus interest, of which the funds should hopefully materialise within a few days. After paying off the credit cards from the regular saver / current account funds, we will have less than £1,000 pounds in cash to our name – but no debt whatsoever!

The plan.
The plan is to build up a savings pot of £30,000 within a time scale of two years, ie December 2013 to December 2015 – that’s the ”thirty”. I’m also not wanting to punish ourselves / lead a miserable life to achieve this and if after two years, I get to “just” say £25,000, then that’s probably ok, but the diary is an incentive to make some progress from near zero savings…

This is going to be done via a range of current account / savings products, ie very likely to be savings only with minimal to zero risk.

The spreadsheet.
Having looked online for any calculator that would advise of the spread of balances between multiple savings accounts, I could not find anything – sites tended to recommend one product and conclude that after duration X you would have balance Y, so I’ve been playing around with a savings spreadsheet. Since this is a public diary, I’ll also share the spreadsheet. See post #2 for more details.

Anything else?
Nothing springs mind right now - I’m sure I’ll collect a few regular diary followers along the way to pick my brains and keep me on the straight and narrow.

So, thanks for reading and let’s get on to post #2.

Financial Bliss.

financialbliss

The spreadsheet.
This is a google docs sheet. Each column is a current / savings account and each set of five rows is a month.

Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnhcWfGMRVgddGxYR3ZqWXRUVnhCM1ZVaUMxeVJSVEE&hl=en_GB&single=true&gid=0&output=html

For each column, the product rate can either be taken from the top rows if it is a fixed rate product or if variable, is calculated month on month from the balance that month. Eg if Santander balance is less than £1,000, then the interest rate is zero.

For each set of five rows, the following information is calculated:

• Product rate – interest rate for the product taking balance into effect
• Difference- difference in product balance compared to the previous month
• Interest – interest received for the product for that month
• Balance – the end of month balance for the product
• Spread – the percentage of overall savings which is in that particular product

From the above items, I can determine things such as a monthly savings rate, difference in balance, interest received and total balance.

Note: The interest is logged against the month I receive it, rather than the month it relates to.

-=oOo=-

Potential accounts.
I have just upgraded a Nationwide Flex account to a FlexDirect yesterday and this is converting next week. Other potential accounts are as follows…

Current accounts.
A list of potential current accounts and likely interest rate for each.

Santander 123 – partial tax (2.66% net) - applied 27/11/13
Nationwide FlexDirect – tax free (4.89% gross) – upgraded 26/11/13
Nationwide FlexDirect – partial tax (4.40% net)
Yorkshire Bank CA Direct – tax free (3.93% gross)
Clydesdale CA Direct – tax free (3.93% gross)
Nationwide FlexDirect – taxed (3.91% net)
Bank of Scotland x3 – tax free (2.96% gross)
Lloyds Vantage x 3 – tax free (2.96% gross)
TSB Enhance x 3 – tax free (2.96% gross)

Regular savers.
A list of potential savings accounts and likely interest rate for each. (12m = 12 months).

First Direct regular saver (12m) – tax free (6.00% gross)
First Direct regular saver (12m) – taxed (4.80% net)
N & P Gold savings account (12m) – tax free (4.00% gross) Note: Needs current acc.
[STRIKE]Barclays monthly saver (12m) – tax free (3.20% gross)[/STRIKE]
Leeds regular saver (ongoing) – tax free (3.05% gross)
Yorkshire building society regular saver (ongoing) – tax free (3.00% gross)
[STRIKE] Bank of Scotland monthly saver (12m) - tax free (3.00% gross)[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE] Lloyds monthly saver (12m) - tax free (3.00% gross)[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE] TSB monthly saver (12m) - tax free (3.00% gross)[/STRIKE]

Edit: Drafted this up earlier this evening and since drafting this, I have also applied for a Santander 123 current account a short while ago, while also making use of the switching service - closing a Nationwide Flex account.

-=oOo=-

Questions.
Questions you may want to pose to me. As I answer then, I'll linkthe question to the post I added to answer the question. Feel free to pop a question at me.

Q. What are you saving for?
Q. Why the playstation four fund?

-=oOo=-

To do.
Clone 2013 cycle sheet into 2014 cycle sheet

Financial Bliss.

financialbliss

OK. So one week on from starting this diary, where are we just now?

Nationwide FlexDirect. This account switches on 7th December, so I’ve £2,500 at the ready to push into this. Can’t yet cycle the £1,000 funding as I have no fully up and running current account to use just yet.

Santander 123. Applied for a joint account last week. Now have two debit cards and PINs, plus Mrs Bliss has her internet banking details, but I'm still waiting on mine. Switching starts next week and due for completion the following week - 18th December.

First Direct. Applied for a 1st current account last night and was successful. Was given a sort code and bank account immediately, but yet to call up and get a password, so I can initiate internet banking.

QuidCo. Switched the payment account from Nationwide to Santander 123.

Tasks to do in the next few days:

• [STRIKE]Set up First Direct internet banking[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Apply for two First Direct Regular Savers (6%)[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Advise employer of new bank details #1[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Fund Nationwide FlexDirect with £2,500.[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Update saving spreadsheet with new accounts and balances[/STRIKE]

[STRIKE]#1 – This may have got sorted for me as part of the switching service, but feel happier doing this myself.[/STRIKE] Moment of insanity - this would not have been caught by the switching service, as I'm not paid into the current account I'm switching

I’ll cross the above off as I complete them.

FB.

slowlyfading

Good luck with this! I shall be watching with interest

ShelleyC_2

If you're as good at saving as you are at clearing the mortgage you'll hit the target no problem :j

Suffolk_lass

I'm looking forward to following your progress FB. I am one of your MFiT people but with my mortgage running at 0.49% above the base-rate I am looking to build savings equivalent (and exceeding) the outstanding capital before I retire, rather than paying everything off the capital at this stage. I readily admit that while motivated to reduce debt, my complacency filter seems to have kicked in recently as I have just over £50k set aside (os balance far exceeds this) and I m looking for a kick up the bum to get me going again.

You are much more savvy about this than me so I shall shamelessly watch your best buys.

SL

financialbliss

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

I'm looking forward to following your progress FB.

I'm going to be basing the account opening on a decreasing rate, ie opening the better / easier accounts first, then moving on to lesser rates. I'm no real expert here either, but have done some research myself...


Aim to open 3 FlexDirects (two personal accounts and a joint at 5%), then two ongoing regular savers, which over time will grow nicely and avoids the hassle of searching for / opening new accounts every 12 months, then I'm probably looking at two current accounts from Llloyds or TSB. Roughly 6 accounts for 2014 as I'm starting from a savings base of zero.

Have now opened two First Direct regular savers, plus funded Nationwide FlexDirect, so I've currently a savings pot of £2,500 + £300 + £300 ie £3,100 - not too bad. Still have £1,000 of credit card debt (at 0%) and have ongoing monthly credit card bills to pay and direct debits about to come out, so if you're looking at my savings spreadsheet, the bulk of the balance in the Santander 123 account is spoken for.

I've edited post #2, as we've had some account changes since I posted that:

financialbliss wrote: »

[STRIKE]Barclays monthly saver (12m) – tax free (3.20% gross)[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE] Bank of Scotland monthly saver (12m) - tax free (3.00% gross)[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE] Lloyds monthly saver (12m) - tax free (3.00% gross)[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE] TSB monthly saver (12m) - tax free (3.00% gross)[/STRIKE]

Barclays RS - they appear to have withdrawn this for whatever reason.
BoS / Lloyds and TSB - their regular savers have dropped from 3% to 2% and can be bettered with other products

FB.

atush

Do you have a pension with your employer?

gallygirl

Don't waste time opening another FlexDirect FB, we've had letters today saying dropping to 1% in March!!!!!

Archi_Bald

gallygirl wrote: »

Don't waste time opening another FlexDirect FB, we've had letters today saying dropping to 1% in March!!!!!

That is presumably because your 12 months are up in March. If somebody who has not had a FlexDirect before opens a FlexDirect today, they will get 5% for 12 months.

gallygirl

Archi_Bald wrote: »

That is presumably because your 12 months are up in March. If somebody who has not had a FlexDirect before opens a FlexDirect today, they will get 5% for 12 months.

Good grief you are right! I thought I'd only opened in the summer :eek:. At the risk of sounding like a very old person - where does the time go .