What is the best interest rate at the moment?

jimjames

SantaKlaus wrote: »

i think i got it wrong lol i was on money super market website and read it wrong:

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/investments/stocks-shares-isas/lower-risk/

haha i thought the 1.4% was the interest rate but it is actually the annual charge!

I'd echo the comments by opinions4u earlier. It would be crazy to use savings accounts for money you are looking to not touch for 30 years.

Have a look at https://www.hl.co.uk which has some very helpful info. Or look at Cavendish that are slightly cheaper but site is not as easy to use

http://www.cavendishonline.co.uk/investments/our-service/

Depending what you want the money for and your situation you may want to look at pensions as well as S&S ISAs.

Is there a reason why you were originally only looking at cash and mentioned non-risk savings? There is probably more risk from inflation eating the value of your money than any investment risk over a 30 year period. As you can see below £1 in 1984 would need to be worth £2.73 now to have the same purchasing power.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1633409/Historic-inflation-calculator-value-money-changed-1900.html

Over the same time £1 invested in the top 100 shares would now be worth £6.80 despite all the crashes and peaks and worries along the way. Other funds could have done even better.

SantaKlaus

jimjames wrote: »

I'd echo the comments by opinions4u earlier. It would be crazy to use savings accounts for money you are looking to not touch for 30 years.

Have a look at www.hl.co.uk which has some very helpful info. Or look at Cavendish that are slightly cheaper but site is not as easy to use

http://www.cavendishonline.co.uk/investments/our-service/

Depending what you want the money for and your situation you may want to look at pensions as well as S&S ISAs.

Is there a reason why you were originally only looking at cash and mentioned non-risk savings? There is probably more risk from inflation eating the value of your money than any investment risk over a 30 year period. As you can see below £1 in 1984 would need to be worth £2.73 now to have the same purchasing power.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1633409/Historic-inflation-calculator-value-money-changed-1900.html

Over the same time £1 invested in the top 100 shares would now be worth £6.80 despite all the crashes and peaks and worries along the way. Other funds could have done even better.

Thanks for that, i'll have a look at all this when i get time,

the reason i was thinking about non risk savings was because then i know where i am, ie i know if i put in £50 i'll get back atleast £50

Where as the S&S ISA's can, at worst, be totally lost can't they? So there is a risk of being homeless in retirement if i put all my money into that and lost it all. TBH I don't really know anything about stocks and shares, I've never had anything to do with them.

At the moment my back up plan (if i dont get enough to live on from state pension and work pension when i retire) is that i will have to sell my house after paying off the mortgage (i haven't got the house yet, i'm just waiting for exchange of contract at the end of next month). Then i will have to use this money and also the small pension to live in a country where it is cheaper ie Thailand. TBH i don't want that,it's ok for a holiday but i wouldn't want to live there full time. But its a back up plan.

Glen_Clark

SantaKlaus wrote: »

Thanks for that, i'll have a look at all this when i get time,

the reason i was thinking about non risk savings was because then i know where i am, ie i know if i put in £50 i'll get back atleast £50

Yes but you don't know what that £50 will be worth. Inflation is even more important than interest rates to savers.
You are right that shares are more risky, so the idea is to spread the risk among so many shares there is very little risk of losing money in the long term, and no risk of losing it all.

Thrugelmir

If you want your money back £1 for £1 buy some premium bonds.

May even win the occasional prize as well.

opinions4u

the reason i was thinking about non risk savings was because then i know where i am, ie i know if i put in £50 i'll get back atleast £50

If you put £50 away for 30 years and inflation is an average of 1.5% more than your net savings rate your £50 plus interest will only be worth £22 in today's money.

SantaKlaus

opinions4u wrote: »

If you put £50 away for 30 years and inflation is an average of 1.5% more than your net savings rate your £50 plus interest will only be worth £22 in today's money.

I understand what you are saying but that makes no difference to me as i dont get payrises at work (unless i get a promotion, which in my business it is unlikely), i haven't had a pyrise in over 10 years lol, so my wages are in effect worth less and less every year due to inflation. The good point about putting savings away in a fixed term is that i cannot get them until the end and even though the interest is small ie 2% it is more then my wages would give me.

I don't want any risk at all, and i'm happy with a small interest rate, as long as it's about 2% or more. I suppose i could give S&S ISA's a go, but i don't know which S&S to put money into,

but like Glen Clark says: "You are right that shares are more risky, so the idea is to spread the risk among so many shares there is very little risk of losing money in the long term, and no risk of losing it all"

So i need to find lots of good S&S ISA's (in the future), i just need to work out all my outgoings first after i move into my first property and i start paying my work pension sometime next month. I may not have anything left over to put into savings anyway lol

SantaKlaus

Thrugelmir wrote: »

If you want your money back £1 for £1 buy some premium bonds.

May even win the occasional prize as well.

With my luck, i'd get more from a ISA haha.

jimjames

SantaKlaus wrote: »

the reason i was thinking about non risk savings was because then i know where i am, ie i know if i put in £50 i'll get back atleast £50

Where as the S&S ISA's can, at worst, be totally lost can't they? So there is a risk of being homeless in retirement if i put all my money into that and lost it all. TBH I don't really know anything about stocks and shares, I've never had anything to do with them.

If you buy an individual share then there is a risk that you could lose the entire amount. If you buy a mix of funds investing in different indexes around the world then the chance of losing the whole amount is as close to zero as you can get.

If the value of all companies around the world ever reached zero then I don't think the worry about value of investments would be your most pressing concern. Yes the value of shares can decrease as well as increase but over time should be higher than inflation. Even with the recent financial crisis when the value of the FTSE100 dropped by nearly 50% over a year or two, all that drop has now been recovered and the index is higher than it was beforehand. In addition you've also had dividend payments on those shares which equates to around 3% per year on top of any capital value changes.

opinions4u

The OP knows best.

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