HELP!!! Advice needed with saving

AJChinn

Hi everyone

First time poster here.

I hope this is the right place to be seeking general advice and help regarding savings. I've never really been in a particularly strong position to actually do any serious saving until now so I don't really want to just open the first savings account that my current bank (Halifax) offers me. I've been attempting to read through this website and forums to try and see what would be the best options to consider but i'm just having a pretty hard time getting my head around all the numbers and figures so here I am to hopefully get some advice.

First of all the reason i'm saving is to purchase my first home and from what I have seen so far Halifax who i currently bank with offers a pretty good interest rate of 2.5% on its Help to Buy ISA which I am considering opening towards the end of the month which will mean an initial deposit of £1000 and then monthly payments of £200

My main issue is deciding where to start putting the remaining pot of money that i wish to start saving per month. (£500+). Do I open a new current account with higher interest? Use regular savings accounts? I'm really not too familiar with banks and savings and interest rates and so on so i'm really hoping that theirs somebody out there that can offer any sort of guidance on what would be the best thing to do.

Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated.

Eco_Miser

Ordinary savings accounts have poor rates at the moment, although the current favourites have started to drop their rates too.

For a regular £500 a month a Regular Saver or two would be the obvious answer, see a list here. Pick one with a fixed rate, and you know you'll be getting that rate for a year, whatever the rates offered to new customers.

Having a current account that pays a good rate is sensible, even if the balance is mostly coming in on pay day and going out again over the month.

You can have at least one current account with each bank that will accept you as a customer, so you can take advantage of all the promotional rates, assuming you've got the money.

Lastly, I hope you're getting a fiver a month reward for your Halifax current account.