50k Savings / Investment

atush

oysteroyster wrote: »

I'm probably committing the cardinal sin, but I've not even got around to setting up any sort of private pension scheme yet. *Gulp*. Where to start.



For simplicity, it's certainly something I'd considered but surely I could do better for not that much additional effort?

Yeah, that is the cardinal sin of stupidity lol.

Really, get online and open a pension now. HL or cavendish online. For a start, every 100 in your pension will only cost you 60. Atl east for 100% of earnings over the HRT limit. Below that, 100 in a pension costs you 80.

Your little pots of cash everywhere are all very nice. But for longer term savings over decades, you really need to be in equities, and within tax shelters of pensions and S&S isas.

oysteroyster

Your little pots of cash everywhere are all very nice. But for longer term savings over decades, you really need to be in equities, and within tax shelters of pensions and S&S isas.

Yeah sure, point taken but I envisage a good bulk of my current savings going into a deposit for a house (and associated costs) before embarking upon long-term saving strategies.

But yes, regarding pensions, I need to get all of that sorted asap.

TomJ

oysteroyster wrote: »

Thanks Tom but unfortunately I already held this account for a year until recently and now the interest rate has dropped to 1% - will have to close and wait 12 months before I can access the 5% rate again.

Ah, mea maxima culpa, I should have worked that out from your other posts. One thing you might want to do is the Tesco Saver @ 3%, not jsut as a short term sink for the excess of your 1-2-3 but to put your ISA money into should Osborne follow through on his promise to allow you to put mony you have taken out of an ISA back in in-year. If so, there shouldn't be anything to stop you taking all but the minimum amount out of an instant access ISA, putting it into an account that pays more despite tax (an ISA would have to pay SR tax payer >2.4%, HR >1.8% to beat a 3% taxed account) putting it all plus your remaining allowance back in at the begining of April to preserve your allowance, then repeating in the new tax year.

eskbanker

TomJ wrote: »

One thing you might want to do is the Tesco Saver @ 3%, not jsut as a short term sink for the excess of your 1-2-3 but to put your ISA money into

Just to be clear, as they're sometimes confused on here, Tesco offer current accounts at 3% (two per person for up to £3K each) and savings accounts suitable for larger sums but only at 1.35% currently (plus various fixed rate products).

TomJ

eskbanker wrote: »

Just to be clear, as they're sometimes confused on here, Tesco offer current accounts at 3% (two per person for up to £3K each) and savings accounts suitable for larger sums but only at 1.35% currently (plus various fixed rate products).

That's a !!!!!!ation - I hadn't bothered looking at the detail there as I am not likey to fill my Santander 1-2-3 any time soon. <fx: Looks at detail> Well, the OP's original Tesco/RBS plan seems the best; it seems you can get 3% on up to 5 grand in each of three BoS accounts and up to 3 grand in each of 2 Tesco accounts, so that would allow up to an extra £24000 at 3%. Neither seems to have any DD requirement, so standing order money-go-round would suffice. you'd want to keep all the 3% accounts under their max balance allow interest in each to compound.

eskbanker

TomJ wrote: »

it seems you can get 3% on up to 5 grand in each of three BoS accounts and up to 3 grand in each of 2 Tesco accounts, so that would allow up to an extra £24000 at 3%.

I make it £21K (3 x £5K = £15K plus 2 x £3K = £6K)

TomJ wrote: »

you'd want to keep all the 3% accounts under their max balance allow interest in each to compound.

It really doesn't make much difference at these levels of interest but a slightly better alternative is to keep all the best ones full and skim off the interest to another interest-earning account (with headroom!) when shuffling the minimum monthly payments in/out, e.g. pay in £1,000, transfer out £1,006 or whatever....

colsten

TomJ wrote: »

Well, the OP's original Tesco/RBS plan seems the best; it seems you can get 3% on up to 5 grand in each of three BoS accounts ....

Just for future reference: RBS is not the same as BOS. They are two totally separate companies.

RBS is the Royal Bank Of Scotland. Owner of Natwest, Williams & Glyn and Ulster Bank. Ruined by Fred Goodwin, propped up by huge amounts of taxpayer money.

BOS is the Bank Of Scotland, which merged with Halifax to form HBOS. Lloyds Banking Group took over HBOS in 2008, with some help from the UK government, all in the wake of the financial crisis.

oysteroyster

I take a slightly more hands-on approach, manually rotating funds once a month to fulfil the minimum deposit criteria. Then I receive a text message the moment my balance exceeds the maximum threshold (i.e. interest is paid into the account), at which time I immediately transfer it into a less full account so that it continues to earn interest. Slightly more time consuming (say 15mins a month) but ultimately gives me full control and peace of mind that my money's working as hard as it can in the banks.

TomJ

Right, I've been jolly careless thus far on this thread, so I'll link to what I'm talking about as a tool to make sure I don't mix names up:

You can get a bit more drip fed into high interest regular savers now. HSBC have a 6% account and TSB have increased their monthly saver rate to 5% (MSE article not yet updated, but details on the bank's site)