Savings Account or ISA?

DiNZi

missile wrote: »

That explains why you have K15K spare cash <LOL>

Ha ha, yeah also helps that I can put more aside than I would with a girlfriend from my salary each month lol!

I think I've misunderstood one concept from the beginning, when it's written must deposit at least £500 or £750 or £1500 a month, you can do this in a cycle? So let's say First Direct, Santander, Halifax, I have £1750 in each account, I can setup £750 payments to go from one to the other and I'll get the £5 from Halifax, or the interest from a/c a or b?

I thought it had to be new money on top of what is already in there (which would mean no big withdrawals).

That helps plenty, will look at it again tomorrow.

YorkshireBoy

DiNZi wrote: »

I think I've misunderstood one concept from the beginning, when it's written must deposit at least £500 or £750 or £1500 a month, you can do this in a cycle? So let's say First Direct, Santander, Halifax, I have £1750 in each account, I can setup £750 payments to go from one to the other and I'll get the £5 from Halifax, or the interest from a/c a or b?

In principle, yes, but you wouldn't keep £1,750 in either FD or Halifax.

If all your accounts are full, and you were using SOs rather than making manual payments, you'd set the payment to the highest required (probably Club Lloyds' £1,500), and cycle from A>B>C>A

I thought it had to be new money on top of what is already in there (which would mean no big withdrawals).

They're current accounts, not savings accounts. Think of it this way...would you expect them to refuse you access to your salary when it was deposited?

Eco_Miser

DiNZi wrote: »

I think I've misunderstood one concept from the beginning, when it's written must deposit at least £500 or £750 or £1500 a month, you can do this in a cycle? So let's say First Direct, Santander, Halifax, I have £1750 in each account, I can setup £750 payments to go from one to the other and I'll get the £5 from Halifax, or the interest from a/c a or b?

That's true of the current accounts. For the Regular Savers (FD RS 6% and Club Lloyds Monthly Saver 4%) the money goes in and stays for the rest of the year, not really a problem when you've got £7,000+ elsewhere to drawn on.

DiNZi

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

In principle, yes, but you wouldn't keep £1,750 in either FD or Halifax.

If all your accounts are full, and you were using SOs rather than making manual payments, you'd set the payment to the highest required (probably Club Lloyds' £1,500), and cycle from A>B>C>AThey're current accounts, not savings accounts. Think of it this way...would you expect them to refuse you access to your salary when it was deposited?

Yeah, exactly, no FD or Halifax.

I can meet all the requirements except the at least 2 direct debits, I only pay for EE (phone) and Virgin (bb/tv) through direct debit. How do I get other direct debits to help meet the requirements?

As if I'm going to go down this path of getting a few current accounts, I'll need a few direct debits.

lynnejk

Hiya


Hope you don't mind me joining in.


All above seems quite logical and would like to point out a couple of things which I currently do myself.


Firstly TSB - you can hold 2 paperless accounts up to £2000 in each if you open them before end of this year (Just means doing it all on line and their site is easy to use) and they pay 5% monthly.
From 1st Jan 2015 you can keep both accounts but if you only have one now you won't be able to open another one then.
They don't require direct debits either.


Multiple bank accounts - just set up a circle of direct debits to send the monies round in a loop to meet the various minimum deposit requirements. (You can go to each bank in the wind and rain and do this physically but why?). I would suggest that you leave a day between each to allow for any odd days missed by THEM.


Don't forget to check online that it is all happening okay a couple of times each month so you can correct if necessary.

Santander does require two direct debits so use one of your current ones there and add one to pay another bank account and then do the same somewhere else with the other direct debit you already hold.

Good luck
Lx


:xmassign:

Eco_Miser

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4168667 is getting a little old now, but it has plenty of suggestions. Tesco is favourite.

YorkshireBoy

lynnejk wrote: »

Firstly TSB - you can hold 2 paperless accounts up to £2000 in each if you open them before end of this year (Just means doing it all on line and their site is easy to use) and they pay 5% monthly.
From 1st Jan 2015 you can keep both accounts but if you only have one now you won't be able to open another one then.

That's not my understanding, based on...


http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/banking/2014/10/planning-on-getting-a-tsb-current-account-do-it-now-if-you-want-to-open-four

Multiple bank accounts - just set up a circle of direct debits to send the monies round in a loop to meet the various minimum deposit requirements.

You can't set up DDs between current accounts. What you're referring to are SOs.

I would suggest that you leave a day between each to allow for any odd days missed by THEM.

Not necessary if the accounts are full.

Santander does require two direct debits so use one of your current ones there and add one to pay another bank account and then do the same somewhere else with the other direct debit you already hold.

Much easier with a couple of Tesco savings accounts, which would service the DD requirements on Santander (which doesn't have to pay out each month), Halifax, & Club Lloyds.

polymaff

DiNZi wrote: »

I see what you mean, instead of just Santander 123, I could leave the money £15,000 where it is and open a couple of high interest current accounts and circulate the money around to them every month to get good interest.

Do all accounts discussed require you 'must' deposit every month?

Distribute - not circulate. There does have to be money in each account if it is to earn interest. So £2,500 in a Nationwide, FlexDirect, £2,000 in each TSB plus account, the rest in Santander. You will then have to "circulate" funds to meet the monthly funding requirement. See YorkshireBoy's last post for the figures. That's not a big deal as the money can just move from one account to another immediately. So making faster payment of £1,000 Santander->Nationwide->TSB->Santander should only occupy 15 minuts per month and meets the monthly deposit requirement. Then there is two Direct Debits to be set up on a Santander 123 account. These don't have to be regularly-paying DDs, just setup.

Eco_Miser

You missed the £5000 in Club Lloyds, plus £400 per month into the associated regular saver.

colsten

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

Much easier with a couple of Tesco savings accounts, which would service the DD requirements on Santander (which doesn't have to pay out each month), Halifax, & Club Lloyds.

I agree in principle but I would always consider to have all my "real" DDs on the Santander 123 as many (or all, in my case) can earn cashback. My average monthly cashback is about £10, leaving me with £8ish after the monthly fee. So instead of me paying Santander £24 a year, they are paying me some £96 a year for having the account. That even beats the added value of a Halifax Reward in my case (though, of course, I have some of them, too).

My extra DDs (for Halifax, Lloyds and whoever else might ask for DDs) are small £1 DDs going into a couple of my savings accounts.