Premium Bonds Article Discussion Area

ennnceee

Thank you both.

KTF

Does anyone use a spreadsheet to track the average return based on time held, prizes won, etc?

I am trying to put one together but struggling with the formulas at the moment.

talexuser

I just have starting amount say A1 and total prizes B1 then increase is =A1/B1*100 as a %.

Starting date is C1 and current date is C2 the time invested is
=(YEAR(C2)-YEAR(C1))*12+MONTH(C2)-MONTH(C1) as no of months.

then the equivalent yearly AER is the =% above/(no of months/12)

KTF

Thanks It was the yearly AER I was struggling to work out.

Now it gives me a better idea of the return rather than the general % increase based on the total + prizes.

Murphybear

I bought £6000 of PSBs earlier this year to go in the April draw.

According to the MSE calculator if I have average luck I should expect 1 x £25 win in the first year.

My winnings have been

April £0
May £0
June £0
July 2 x £25
August 2 x £25
September 1 x £25


The £125 is automatically reinvested so I now have £6125

Sounds like a good return to me.

Looks like I have 5 x average luck in the first 6 months.

Paul_Herring

Looks like I have 5 x average luck in the first 6 months.

... not to put a downer on this, but...

eskbanker

Murphybear wrote: »

I bought £6000 of PSBs earlier this year to go in the April draw.

According to the MSE calculator if I have average luck I should expect 1 x £25 win in the first year.

Not when I do it - it shows £75 as the anticipated 'average luck' return from £6K for a year, which, at 1.25%, is much as would be expected for a non-trivial holding over a non-trivial time period.

If you've actually won £125 you're still obviously doing better than average though, just not by as much as you'd apparently thought....

Chris_in_Ashtead

I was given a Premium Bond by family relatives when I was born. I'm now 61 years old and have NEVER won any prize. And yes, I have checked it for winnings on the NS&I web site checking service.

eskbanker

Chris_in_Ashtead said:

I was given a Premium Bond by family relatives when I was born. I'm now 61 years old and have NEVER won any prize. And yes, I have checked it for winnings on the NS&I web site checking service.

The odds of a single bond winning a prize are about 1 in 24,500 in any given month (but about to get worse), so on average you'd expect to win something roughly every 2,000 years, i.e. don't hold your breath!

The_Bleurk

Slightly pessimistic: £1 would be a prize every 0.25 million years. £25 every 10000 years. But.... contrary to many beliefs it is statistically well behaved - hold £50k max and you will see