Nationwide Flex Regular Saver 13th payment

2010

You probably can make the 13th payment but if it`s for just a couple of days interest

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why bother.

dggar

So is the best option, when opening a new account to open it just before the end of the month (30th for a 31 day month) with £500 and put the next £500 on the 1st of the following month and continue adding £500 on the 1st of the following months.

YorkshireBoy

2010 wrote: »

You probably can make the 13th payment but if it`s for just a couple of days interest

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why bother.

Nobody's disputing it's pennies in this case. It's not the amount though, it's the principle, and how it can be used to much better advantage.


Imagine a regular saver launched on the 29th of a particular month. Now hopefully you can see the benefit of reading, and understanding the T&Cs (both in terms of what they do say, and what they don't say), because making an additional payment here generates an extra month's interest.

YorkshireBoy

dggar wrote: »

So is the best option, when opening a new account to open it just before the end of the month (30th for a 31 day month) with £500 and put the next £500 on the 1st of the following month and continue adding £500 on the 1st of the following months.

What's your 1st £500 making whilst you're sat waiting for the 30th of the month to come around?

Vortigern

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

What's your 1st £500 making whilst you're sat waiting for the 30th of the month to come around?

... and what if they withdraw the product before the 30th?

Speculator

Vortigern wrote: »

... and what if they withdraw the product before the 30th?

I don't think they will withdraw it because it's a variable rate account.

It's more likely they will reduce the rate to around 2.5%

YorkshireBoy

Speculator wrote: »

I don't think they will withdraw it because it's a variable rate account.

It's more likely they will reduce the rate to around 2.5%

I think you've missed the (general) point Vortigern was making about regular savers.

dggar

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

What's your 1st £500 making whilst you're sat waiting for the 30th of the month to come around?

Sat in an account now earning 4% but will drop to 2% in the next month or so.

grey_gym_sock

dggar wrote: »

So is the best option, when opening a new account to open it just before the end of the month (30th for a 31 day month) with £500 and put the next £500 on the 1st of the following month and continue adding £500 on the 1st of the following months.

IMHO, yes.

i have a flex regular saver which will finish near the start of december (because i didn't work this out last year). i plan to open another 1, but only near the end of december.

by not having £500 in this account for most of december, i'll only get c. 1% (because i'm too lazy for most the multiple account malarkey) instead of 5% on £500 for nearly a month. that costs me almost £2 of interest.

from 1 january to 30 november 2017, i'll have exactly the same balance in the regular saver as if i'd opened it in early december (because i can deposit the second £500 on 1 january, and so on). so there's no difference in the interest earned between those dates.

in december 2017, i'll be able to get the balance up to £6500, and earn 5% on that for almost the whole month. whereas if i'd opened the account in early december 2016, i'd be closing the account early in december 2017, and perhaps putting £500 into a new regular saver (if you can still open new accounts at that point). so my balance is at least £6000 higher than with early opening. 5% instead of 1% on £6000 for almost a month is a gives me an extra £20 interest.

there is a small risk that nationwide will cut the interest rate on this account (to something not worth having) before december 2017. if the rate becomes rubbish, the account can (and should) be closed immediately. it's a gamble: give up £2 now, in the hope of gaining £20 a year later. i like those odds.

and if nationwide cut the rate a bit, but it's still good (which i think is much more likely, if they cut it at all), i'd still gain, but less than £20.

the other risk is that they withdraw the account before i try to open it in late december.

was it really worth my time figuring this out? i doubt it .. this is why i don't get into most of this regular saver interest-chasing. (this 1 happened to be simple to open, given i already had a qualifying current account.)

2010

My first £500 went in on 11th Dec 2015 and gained interest for the rest of that month (20 days)
It matures on 10th next month.
By putting another £500 in on the 1st of next month I`ll get 10 days interest.
Therefore for the whole year I still get 364/365 days interest.