Santander 123 account fee increasing to £5 from January

Spidernick

Agreed - so perhaps the 70% should be somewhat lower, although we get a little more than the £60 a year to break even and our bills are not excessive. I would think most people won't have to pay a net fee still.

DragonQ

EssexExile wrote: »

Energy £2.50, council tax £2.50. Anything else is profit. As others have said if it works for you use it, if it doesn't why wouldn't you dump it?

Mate you pay a lot for your council tax and energy!

Consumerist

Archi_Bald wrote: »

. . . Do you have particularly massive phone bills? It takes a lot of huge bills to get even over £20 cashback a month.

I suspect it will be mainly those with Santander mortgages who will still get enough cash-back to cover the new fee.

SAHD_Jim

colsten wrote: »

BOS + Tesco will give you 3% AER on £21K, albeit on variable interest rates.

Where are these accounts that pay 3% on £21K, and why have I not heard of them? According to this site, Tesco is up to £3K and BOS up to £5K.

jem16

SAHD_Jim wrote: »

Where are these accounts that pay 3% on £21K, and why have I not heard of them? According to this site, Tesco is up to £3K and BOS up to £5K.

You can have 3 BOS Vantage accounts and 2 Tesco CA so £21k in total.

SAHD_Jim

bxboards wrote: »

Indeed - I reckon pretty much anyone who is covering the £5 fee just on bills cashback could almost certainly ecomomise a bit and save that £3 increase somewhere. That seems an awful lot of outgoings on bills to me - maybe turn the heating thermostat down 1 degree or move to a less expense mobile for example.

I disagree. My Council Tax is fixed, my wife doesn't have an expensive mobile contract (and I'm PAYG), I ditched pay TV a while back. I haven't got the heating on yet (my utility bills for gas/elec are below average for my property type). We are on a water meter and pay less than the rateable amount. Fibre is not in our area, so we are on a cheap phone/bb package, but not the cheapest as we do require unlimited.

I get over £5 a month. Anyone who is paying, say, £30 for a pay TV subscription would be getting 90p more than me. If both spouses have a phone contract, more again. Etc. Even aside from a Santander mtg, getting £5 is not reliant on profligacy.

SAHD_Jim

jem16 wrote: »

You can have 3 BOS Vantage accounts and 2 Tesco CA so £21k in total.

Ah I see, thanks for clarifying. So not the same as one single 123 account.

4 current accounts and regular savings is enough for me atm. I'm not opening 5 more and then more regular savings with short term offers. Life is too short.

masonic

SAHD_Jim wrote: »

Life is too short.

Always an interesting argument. There are loads of things we spend our time doing that are less productive. For example, why not just cut your next MSE session 5 minutes short and use that time to open the next account.

bxboards

SAHD_Jim wrote: »

I disagree. My Council Tax is fixed, my wife doesn't have an expensive mobile contract (and I'm PAYG), I ditched pay TV a while back. I haven't got the heating on yet (my utility bills for gas/elec are below average for my property type). We are on a water meter and pay less than the rateable amount. Fibre is not in our area, so we are on a cheap phone/bb package, but not the cheapest as we do require unlimited.

I get over £5 a month. Anyone who is paying, say, £30 for a pay TV subscription would be getting 90p more than me. If both spouses have a phone contract, more again. Etc. Even aside from a Santander mtg, getting £5 is not reliant on profligacy.

I don't quite see what you are dis-agreing on. Are you saying it's impossible for you to save 3 pounds on your outgoings somehow, to offset the 3 fee increase.

Sorry but anyone getting over 5 pounds a month just on bills cashback is not being very moneysaving.

For example:

My mobile contract is 5 pounds a month with TalkTalk, 500mm minutes, unlimted txt, 1GB data
My broadband is with BT Infinity and costs me 10 pounds a month.

So if someone pays say 10 a month to for a mobile, switch, save a fiver, and you pay the 3 quid extra fee, and have two quid left. Which is why I still reckon it's very easy to offset the 3 pound fee increase, by reducing bills outgoing.

I don't see quite what there is to dis-agree with - only the council tax will generally be fixed out of most bills. If someone can't save £3 a month on bill outgoings to offset the £3 fee increase, you are on the wrong site too be honest

masonic

bxboards wrote: »

If someone can't save £3 a month on bill outgoings to offset the £3 fee increase, you are on the wrong site too be honest

I don't follow your logic. If it is possible to save money on outgoings why wouldn't you do so independently of the increase? I'd have thought regular users of this site are going to find it hardest to realise these sorts of savings compared with someone who has never considered shopping around etc before now.

In any case, it is best to view the interest, cashback and fee as a whole and determine your rate of return. If you can do better elsewhere, go elsewhere. Make the savings on outgoings that are possible as a separate exercise.