How To Maximise Interest, Unsure What To Do

no1wf

We're saving for a deposit and currently have just over £7k

We both have personal accounts, me with Natwest and him with Barclays. Just for our wages to be paid into and small direct debits.

Our savings are currently in my spare account I've had since I was little, a Santander Instant Saver. The interest rate is 0.10% I think. We used this just to teach my OH how to save money every month as he used to be pretty bad!

My OH only has a temporary job at the moment so regular, larger amounts of money may only be going in for around 6 months. After that I can keep paying in myself but not as large.

I'm just wondering what others think we should do with our money. With us possibly only having an account for 6 months I thought maybe somewhere with monthly interest? We don't dip into it so would an ISA be best?

If a bank account is best the only ones local to us are Natwest, Barclays, Santander and HSBC. But we can travel to the next town over to a TSB if needed.

Imma_Number

You don't need to go into a branch to open an account.
TSB & Santander certainly allow you to open them online.

no1wf

Imma_Number wrote: »

You don't need to go into a branch to open an account.
TSB & Santander certainly allow you to open them online.

I was thinking more along the lines of depositing the money. OH gives me an amout every week and then whatever he has left at the end of the month (because he gets paid weekly). And I withdraw a lump sum (more than I can at an ATM) and deposit both ours into the account in branch

If he didn't take it out to physically hand it to me he'd probably forget :rotfl:

Eco_Miser

TSB pay 5% on £1-£2000 (that's £6000 if you each have a sole account, and a joint one between you), Nationwide 5% on £1-£2500, but only for a year, Lloyds 4% on £4000-£5000, and Santander 3% on £3000-£20000.
If you have Internet Banking, and an account with a local bank, you don't need to visit a TSB, Lloyds, etc. branch to pay in - just transfer the money between banks by Faster Payment.

If the real payments in are less than the required amount, you can use Faster Payments to move sufficient in, and then out again

no1wf

Eco_Miser wrote: »

TSB pay 5% on £1-£2000 (that's £6000 if you each have a sole account, and a joint one between you), Nationwide 5% on £1-£2500, but only for a year, Lloyds 4% on £4000-£5000, and Santander 3% on £3000-£20000.
If you have Internet Banking, and an account with a local bank, you don't need to visit a TSB, Lloyds, etc. branch to pay in - just transfer the money between banks by Faster Payment.

If the real payments in are less than the required amount, you can use Faster Payments to move sufficient in, and then out again

Is that a thing people do, have 3+ accounts because the maximum interest is only paid up to £2k? I would have thought that would look odd when it comes to getting my mortgage no?

saintalan

no1wf wrote: »

Is that a thing people do, have 3+ accounts because the maximum interest is only paid up to £2k? I would have thought that would look odd when it comes to getting my mortgage no?

Serious savers exploit every penny in the right order to gain maximum interest.

It sounds worse than it is, but once set up its pretty straight forward.

You are not running up debt just spreading your money around.

Cheers

Alan

no1wf

saintalan wrote: »

Serious savers exploit every penny in the right order to gain maximum interest.

It sounds worse than it is, but once set up its pretty straight forward.

You are not running up debt just spreading your money around.

Cheers

Alan

I'm not sure I fancy that idea, plus I might not even need them for a whole year so wouldn't see any interest at all

Vortigern

no1wf wrote: »

I'm not sure I fancy that idea, plus I might not even need them for a whole year so wouldn't see any interest at all

all those current accounts pay interest monthly, you don't need to keep them for a year.

YorkshireBoy

It would seem your best option is a Santander 1-2-3 account, for lots of reasons...

1. You're already with them
2. It keeps things really simple
3. Yes, you'll pay £2 a month but this will be offset by cashback generating DDs once you've bought the house.

However, this does not meet your thread title objective of maximising interest, so just how serious are you about maximising returns? Serious enough to open several accounts? Between you, you could get 5% AER (maths lesson: that's nearly twice Santander's 3% AER) on up to £13.5K, and then 4% AER on the next £15K.

So, how serious are you?

Archi_Bald

no1wf wrote: »

I'm not sure I fancy that idea, plus I might not even need them for a whole year so wouldn't see any interest at all

Interest is calculated on a daily basis. That is the same for all accounts that pay interest, at any bank, and for any type of account.

When interest gets paid is a different matter, and subject to T&Cs. For interest-paying current accounts, interest gets paid once a month, and also on account closure.

enthusiasticsaver

As others have said some current accounts pay up to 5% like TSB but this will involve you opening several accounts as it is usually only up to about £2000. I myself have gone down the simpler route of just having 2 Santander 123 accounts, 1 in my sole name and 1 joint with OH. That way you can earn 3% gross on up to £40k. If you have just £7k you only need to open 1 joint account but you will need to fund it monthly either by closing down your Nat West and or Barclays account or doing a monthly transfer.


Neither Nat West nor Barclays give very good deals on current accounts though so I would be tempted to close one or both of these down. Santander 123 pays cashback on direct debits like council tax, water, gas, electric, phone and tv and also the monthly interest you say you want. The only drawback could be that your savings and everyday money would be in the same account so if your OH is undisciplined with money this might be a problem.