Please help me with organising my money!

MARKMAKAVELI

Hey all,

My current situation is that I have £3.5k in my Natwest Current Account and that's it.
Looking to save for first home, buying in the next year or 2 hopefully.

My idea from following the guides and advice on this board is to:

Open up a h2b isa with Halifax
Switch current account to First Direct Regular Saver (moving all DD, bills etc)

Put £1200 into h2b, followed by £200pm.
Put any other savings (potentially £200+ pm) into First Direct Account.

Is this the best plan?

jimjames

MARKMAKAVELI wrote: »

Put £1200 into h2b, followed by £200pm.
Put any other savings (potentially £200+ pm) into First Direct Account.

Is this the best plan?

It's a good start but no, it's not the best plan if you want to maximise your return.

You can get 5% on your savings with TSB and Nationwide. That beats any savings account except the regular saver and HTB ISA you're already getting. So maximise the amounts in those and then put remainder into high interest current accounts. TSB will see you through for 10 months, then look at alternatives.

MARKMAKAVELI

So it's:

Halifax H2B (£200pm)
v
First Direct Regular Saver (up to £300pm)
v
TSB/Nationwide Current Accounts (once I've maxed First Direct acc)

MARKMAKAVELI

FD says:
"if you saved £300 per month for 12 months, you'd receive returns of approximately £117 gross (£93 net) in interest after 12 months. Interest is calculated daily and paid on the 12 month anniversary after account opening"

So now I'm thinking, yes savings are better than nothing but for the hassle for £93 or £9.75pm is it worth it?

eskbanker

MARKMAKAVELI wrote: »

So now I'm thinking, yes savings are better than nothing but for the hassle for £93 or £9.75pm is it worth it?

Entirely up to you, there's always going to be a trade-off between optimising your returns versus doing as little as possible (and for your money to do the same)!

colsten

MARKMAKAVELI wrote: »

So it's:

Halifax H2B (£200pm)
v
First Direct Regular Saver (up to £300pm)
v
TSB/Nationwide Current Accounts (once I've maxed First Direct acc)

You don't need to wait until you have maxed the FD Regular Saver - - open those current accounts straight away. TSB also offers a 5% Monthly Saver, max £250 a month.

Switching your Natwest account to First Direct is still a good idea as you can earn a £100 switching bonus. They'll also pay you yet another £100 if you leave within a given timeframe. See detailed terms on their website. Once you have left them, you can always re-apply to get access to the 6% Regular Saver - albeit you can get the same at M&S Bank as well (£250/mth).

jimjames

MARKMAKAVELI wrote: »

So now I'm thinking, yes savings are better than nothing but for the hassle for £93 or £9.75pm is it worth it?

Maybe another way of thinking about it is how many hours you'd need to work to earn £117.
If you are saving to buy a house surely it's worth getting the best return on all your money. Remember that amount is every year, your £3500 currently getting £0, if that was at 5% then you'd get £175 per year and that would increase as your balance builds up. Personally I'd prefer £175 pa in my bank account rather than donating it to the bank.

Eco_Miser

With £3.5k, put £2k in TSB @5%, £1.2k in Halifax htb ISA, the other £300 could go either in TSB's 5% Regular Saver, or FD's 6% Regular Saver. How much are you going to be saving monthly moving forward?

MARKMAKAVELI

Eco_Miser wrote: »

With £3.5k, put £2k in TSB @5%, £1.2k in Halifax htb ISA, the other £300 could go either in TSB's 5% Regular Saver, or FD's 6% Regular Saver. How much are you going to be saving monthly moving forward?

Thanks all. I've just opened the Halifax H2B Isa (will deposit max £1k once online banking setup, then £200 pm).

Next I'll open the FD 6% reg saver (will deposit max £300 for the forseeable).

Going forward I plan to save anything from £200-£500 which I'll drop the max £250 into the HSBC reg saver and potentially leave anything extra as a buffer. or open M&S reg saver.

Can I just say thankyou so much to everyone for your help.
It was a complete minefield for me, but along wiht the guides on here and your help I've tidied up my finances.