Advice on bank account for Pensioner Please .

jehangir

Hi ,

Can anyone please help me with some advice on a savings account for my Mother r .

She is a pensioner who owns her own home with over £40000 in savings sitting in a standard lloyds account earning around .5%
interest .

I have been searching online for the last 2 week to find the best interest rates but getting nowhere ( lloyds said teh best the could do would be .75%.

The problem is that she wants a high street bank that she can walk into if you has any issues with the account but all the top payers seems to be either phone or online .

Easy access would be the best but would be willing to tie the money up for a year or so .


Any advice would be much appreciated .

Robin9

Santander 123 would give her 3% on £20k

xylophone

I am assuming that your mother might not favour the idea of multiple bank accounts but she might consider opening a Santander 123 and depositing £20,000 and moving at least two of her direct debits.

She could upgrade her Lloyds current account to Club (interest at 4% on £5000) - needs two monthly DDs and a monthly pay in of £1500 - this can be by SO from Santander to Lloyds - then SO back from Lloyds to Santander on the same day.

The balance of £15,000 could be split between three BOS Vantage accounts funding each other by same day SOs - a to b, b to c, c to a but if this is too much for her, she might consider opening a savings account of some kind at the best interest she can get?

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/article-1583859/Best-savings-rates-General-savings-Internet-branch.html

jimjames

Even moving the money as suggested above and leaving the remainder in a savings account at lower rate would still give much better return than sticking with 0.5%

jehangir

Thanks for the advice and link .


Yes the problem is that she does not want multiple accounts , I was looking at the Santander account but it is requires £500 a month paid into it which i do not think that her pension would cover as it is just a basic state one .

jimjames

If you've got £40k then it's easy enough to move money in and out to meet the £500 required. Maybe more of an issue depending on the person but my parents are pensioners and wouldn't have an issue with it.

Really depends on the effort that's wanted, more effort gives more return. Alternatively if they want better return and no effort then one option for part of it is investments where you'd get around 4% income

polymaff

jehangir wrote: »

Hi ,

Can anyone please help me with some advice on a savings account for my Mother r .

She is a pensioner who owns her own home with over £40000 in savings sitting in a standard lloyds account earning around .5%
interest .

I have been searching online for the last 2 week to find the best interest rates but getting nowhere ( lloyds said teh best the could do would be .75%.

The problem is that she wants a high street bank that she can walk into if you has any issues with the account but all the top payers seems to be either phone or online .

Easy access would be the best but would be willing to tie the money up for a year or so .


Any advice would be much appreciated .

She won't get an old-fashioned service at a new-fashioned interest rate. The suggestions made by others are the way to go - and you could be the buffer between your mother and the Brave New World of present-day banking.

How about it? Say 10-20 hours of your time per annum in exchange for about another £1,200 a year income for your mother?

BTW, I'm a pensioner - and it isn't that hard a task

jennifernil

We are pensioners too, we have multiple current accounts earning 3-5%.

Only takes us about 20 minutes per month to manage, would be less if we used SOs.

If we needed help to manage them we would get our daughter involved, she has our POAs.

If your mum has no POA in place, or a will, this would be the time to get these done.

We are with Santander, Lloyds, TSB and BOS, all have High Street branches we can visit if need be.

With interest rates so poor on traditional savings accounts, you do need to make the effort if you want a better return.