Setting up for some good savings interest.

ruudy

Hallo

Looking for a little assistance with my savings.

Currently i have a Halifax Ultimate Reward account to which my wages are paid (usually kept pretty empty) and also a Santander 123 account to which i transfer all my money. At present i have 9k all in my 123 account and i'm looking to switch the Ultimate Reward account to another account as i no longer have any use for the benefits/insurances associated with that account.

One thing worth noting is that i am about to pay approx 4k towards a remortgage so for the purposes of this discussion i currently have 5k in savings.

In terms of future savings, i should be able to save away something in the order of 1k per month.

So where i need some advice here is with which accounts i should be looking into opening? I would like the ability to be able to cancel at any point without any penalty and would also prefer not to be weighed down with any DD requirements. I currently have about 4 or 5 direct debits accross both accounts.

As a starting point i see that TSB have a 5% account on 2k savings. Is there anything else i should be looking at? I'm quite content to run with 2 or 3 accounts for now.

ruudy

Oh and i forgot to mention but i see that First Direct currently offer 125 quid for a switch. Is this something that would be worth considering or is the benefit outweighed by the fact that the account itself is pretty bland?

Eco_Miser

It's pretty bland, but does give you access to the FD Regular Saver, which pays 6% AER.
For the high interest current accounts see http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest (the link's just at the top of the page)

ruudy

So i could do the following? :

- Switch from Halifax to First Direct Current account and bag the £125. (possibly making use of a linked regular saver at some stage).

-Set up a TSB current account and pay 2k into this and leave it topped at 2k (paying in and out the min requirement each month).

-Keep my 123 current account holding the reaminder of my savings for now.

Also, is there a minimum length of time that i must use the FD current account to get the bonus?

Eco_Miser

Yes, you could do that.
There is a minimum time to keep the FD account, read the T&C's to find it, but that doesn't really matter, as you need to keep it to make use of the Regular Saver - currently the best paying bank account. Save the maximum in the RS, pay it from your Santander, and double your interest on that amount.

It's worth having a standard Halifax Reward just for the £5 net reward per month.

Consider a Club Lloyds account as well.

ruudy

Eco_Miser wrote: »

Yes, you could do that.
There is a minimum time to keep the FD account, read the T&C's to find it, but that doesn't really matter, as you need to keep it to make use of the Regular Saver - currently the best paying bank account. Save the maximum in the RS, pay it from your Santander, and double your interest on that amount.

It's worth having a standard Halifax Reward just for the £5 net reward per month.

Consider a Club Lloyds account as well.

Hi Eco, Only just noticed this with all the activity in the other thread.

Apologies if i peeved you off a bit in the other thread. I just don't like to keep tabs on too many things. It's hard enough with other things in life

I will take on board all of your advice and look into things in a bit more detail. The FD account is a no brainer for the amount involved, i'll just need to take a look into a few of the others.

When i posted about the TSB account in my post above, i hadn't really looked into the actual financial benefit. It was after looking at the maths that i wondered if it was even worth it, hence my controversial thread. It honestly wasn't an attempt at trolling. :rotfl:

alanq

ruudy wrote: »

Oh and i forgot to mention but i see that First Direct currently offer 125 quid for a switch.

First Direct offer "Ends Sun". Also Halifax.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip/#firstdirect

ruudy

alanq wrote: »

"Ends Sun."
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip/#firstdirect

Thanks for letting me know. :beer:

Eco_Miser

To help remembering log-ins see http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/
once it's set up you only need to remember the master password.

Having £2000 in TSB rather than Santander is worth over £3 gross, £2.40 net per month, not a lot compared to your salary, but your Santander will be full in under 8 months if you keep saving at the same rate, and then £2000 in TSB will be getting over £8 a month, compared with £0 in Santander.
or you could open the TSB now and have an extra £20 or so by the time you fill the Santander. All small amounts, but if you're going to have cash sitting around in bank accounts, you may as well the the most interest for it.

ruudy

Eco_Miser wrote: »

To help remembering log-ins see http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/
once it's set up you only need to remember the master password.

Having £2000 in TSB rather than Santander is worth over £3 gross, £2.40 net per month, not a lot compared to your salary, but your Santander will be full in under 8 months if you keep saving at the same rate, and then £2000 in TSB will be getting over £8 a month, compared with £0 in Santander.
or you could open the TSB now and have an extra £20 or so by the time you fill the Santander. All small amounts, but if you're going to have cash sitting around in bank accounts, you may as well the the most interest for it.

Not off to a good start anyway. I applied to switch my halifax ultimate reward account to a First Direct account tonight and was declined. They say they will write to me to explain the reasons why.

ruudy

Not having much joy.

Phoned tonight to downgrade my Ultinate Reward Current Account to just the reward account, spent about 40 mins on the phone only to be told in the end that their system has flagged up that i need to into a branch and show some ID. So that's my lunch break tomorrow sabotaged.

I've also applied for a TSB current account, so will see how that one pans out.

Just one question though. If i'm accepted for TSB what is the best way to do the funds transfers to meet minimum pay in requirements assuming i have the ful 2k in the TSB. My wages go into my Halifax account at present. Should i simply set up SO's to go from Halifax to TSB to Santander? Same day?

Thanks