Opening Cash and S&S ISAs

Samsonite1

Thanks Archi - very informative, I had not noticed that you can have more than one high interest account with the same bank - that does change things! Does seem a little messy having 4 or 5 current accounts, but I guess in an online world it is easier than it once was.

I will certainly look into it.

Jimjames, I am also interested in the S&S side, in fact probably looking to spread things around a bit to reduce any risk but S&S would be nice to get into, so I'm thinking more pension, some high interest account(s) and then some on S&S ISA.

Samsonite1

One thing that I am still unsure of is over a number of years, won't the benefits of piling money into a current account dwindle pretty quickly? Initially it would seem great, but after the first year if you put the same amount in you get nothing where as an ISA will give year after year and so is more of an investment? Am I missing something (probably)?

The other aspect which is purely speculative is that I imagine that current accounts will not maintain high interest rates for that long (say the next few years) and I expect ISAs to go up while these current accounts go down.

Archi_Bald

Yes you are right, the benefits of current accounts are limited to a few tens of thousands, and their rates are variable (much the same as many cash ISAs). That's why I had posted this:

Archi_Bald wrote: »

The only reason for using up your ISA allowance is if you expect to be able to max it out every year. You could still do better IMO if you kept a stack of emergency / short to medium term spending cash in current accounts, and invested the rest into S&S ISAs or even pensions, for yourself and your partner, and perhaps also your child.