What is the Highest Interest Rate / Cashback / Rewards You Can Get?

Eco_Miser

To Sineadg30 and racheljane87
This thread is a reference thread. The first post lists the current best rates available.
The thread is not for asking or answering other questions. There are plenty of other threads about using current accounts for saving, and circulating some of the money to meet required funding.

racheljane87

Sorry, it just seemed from reading the thread that plenty of other people had asked questions which had been answered. I'll take it elsewhere.

Special_Saver2

To Sineadg30 and racheljane87 and everybody else,

I am neither in favour or against asking questions in this thread but I was hoping that the way I wrote the first post of this thread would give people the information they needed to work out the answers themselves.

For example, Sineadg30 has £10,000 as a lump sum. Looking at post 1 of this thread, she could put £2,000 in a TSB current account for 5% then £5,000 in a Lloyds Bank current account for 4% and then put £3,000 in a Bank of Scotland or Tesco Bank account for 3%. The current accounts would all allow instant withdrawals penalty-free and you could just transfer money between the accounts to comply with the monthly payments into the current accounts.

She could also then feed some of the money from the lower paying current accounts into regular saver accounts paying more than 3%. Most of the regular savings accounts also allow a single penalty-free withdrawal and some allow unlimited penalty-free withdrawals. My regular savings thread (there is a link to it in post 1) has more details.

Is there a way that I could make the first post clearer?

SS2

sqwiffy

I hope I'm not asking stupid questions but here goes.....

Does opening all these different current accounts etc affect your credit rating?

How do you all cope with the different passwords etc? I struggle with remembering them for my 2 banks.

I had an account with Smile but their rate went right down so opened a Nationwide plus one. I haven't closed the smile one though as it's a bank I have been with a long time should I want a mortgage/loan in future.I'm not sure if that makes any difference these days and if I'm wasting the potential interest for the money I left in there?

The more I write this, the more I think I need to do a finance overhaul!

Eco_Miser

sqwiffy wrote: »

I hope I'm not asking stupid questions but here goes.....

Does opening all these different current accounts etc affect your credit rating?

Possibly, but only temporarily.

sqwiffy wrote: »

How do you all cope with the different passwords etc? I struggle with remembering them for my 2 banks.

Password Safe http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/

pizza_lord

bigfreddiel wrote: »

I'm getting just over 7%

Cheers fj

How do you get that?

colsten

pizza_lord wrote: »

How do you get that?

You haven't been able to get over 7% from accounts that pay interest for the past several years but you might think you did with the help of magic mushrooms.

Maelwys

Special_Saver2 wrote: »

If you are a single adult, willing to open multiple current accounts that do not have a monthly charge, and do not happen to live near a building society that offers a particularly good regular savings account that is available to locals only, then the best combination is below.

Barclays Blue Rewards is one to add to that list too.

Basically it operates like the Halifax Rewards:
£7 a month reward + £3 a month fee = £4 a month in your pocket.
Needs 2 Direct Debits (as usual) and £800 transferred in each month.

As with Halifax the £800 doesn't have to STAY in the account, so providing the direct debits are covered you can transfer the money in and right back out again. Since it's basically giving you free money, it might be a decent addition to your monthly current account loop.

You'll get an extra £3 a month off them if you use Barclays for home insurance and another £5 if you have your mortgage with Barclays/Woolwich. There are also a few other lures:1% cashback on purchases from certain 'Smartspend partners' (Quoted as "GAP, Boots, Waterstones, Toys R Us and many more") and 7% off Expedia bookings.

Sam_J12

colsten wrote: »

You haven't been able to get over 7% from accounts that pay interest for the past several years but you might think you did with the help of magic mushrooms.

Over 7% is not too hard to achieve if you are saving just a small amount, say £6k:

£4500 @ 5% in Flexdirect and TSC classic (£225/year)
£1400 @ 4% in Halifax HTB ISA (£56/year)
Halifax + Barclays + Coop monthly bonus (= 5+4+4 x 12 = £156/year)

Gives £437/year on a balance of £5900 so an effective rate of 7.4%. Obviously this does not scale to higher amounts but with the use of the 6% regular savers I would not be surprised if you could get 7%+ on around £10k.

colsten

Sam_J12 wrote: »

Over 7% is not too hard to achieve if you are saving just a small amount, say £6k:

£4500 @ 5% in Flexdirect and TSC classic (£225/year)
£1400 @ 4% in Halifax HTB ISA (£56/year)
Halifax + Barclays + Coop monthly bonus (= 5+4+4 x 12 = £156/year)

that's not only interest, but I take your point (and would add switching bonuses and cashback etc)

Sam_J12 wrote: »

Obviously this does not scale to higher amounts

well quite

Sam_J12 wrote: »

but with the use of the 6% regular savers I would not be surprised if you could get 7%+ on around £10k.

Can you do the numbers for that to surprise me, please?