ISA to saving account

Aimee5816

Hi,

Considering moving saving to get better rate of interest and account hop to collect £100 account transfer bonuses.

My plan is this to transfer my NatWest isa account to the nationwide account via referral to collect £100 bonus, phone insurance and better rate of interest.

My question is this- can I also first transfer my account to Halifax to pick up there £100 offer? Is there a time limit of how long I need to be have the account for? As Halifax pays £100 in ten days, after receiving payment can I move account to nationwide.

Thanks.

Archi_Bald

The switch bonuses are for current accounts only, not ISAs. You can transfer as often as you like. Many people have one or two donor current accounts for that purpose. Check the Bank Accounts board for more - lots of people have been switching lots of accounts.

It is generally a good idea to keep your saved money in one or more interest paying current accounts, and or in regular savers, if your total savings are below £15,000 (£20,000 for next tax year) as those accounts beat the ISA rates by a multiple.

AnotherPaul

Hello - And Happy New Year!

Having just read through the MSE website about cash "ISA's v Current Accounts", I just wanted some advice/sounding board on my thoughts if possible, please? :

1. My bank where my ISA is will be dropping it's AER from 0.9% to 0.5% very soon.
2. Looking at the examples of £1,000 for 12 months at the two AERs the difference in tax free interest accrueed over 12 months appears to be only a few pounds (£9 as opposed to £5).
3. I have just about £5K in my ISA - so moving my ISA to another ISA/another place to get a better rate - which as of the 1st January 2017 doesn't appear to be much greater than 0.9% AER in most places (keeping it easy access to the cash as well, i.e. not a fixed rate ISA) - wouldn't appear to make that much of a difference to the tax free interest I would get if I left it where it is at the current rate I put money into the ISA.
4. Although pulling all the ISA money out and sticking it in a higher rate current account somewhere else might seem like a short-term good idea, I'm inclined to think that leaving it in the ISA and waiting until the AER's go back up again would probablt be the best thing to do?

And finally.... (a non-related ISA v Account query)....

Might it be sensible to put more money into my company pension on a monthly basis, i.e. before it gets taxed, than to wait until it is taxed and then putting it into an ISA? I know that by putting it into a pension I wouldn't have access to it should I need it in the short term - but I'm thinking it might be the best way to manage my future money if I can afford to do it that way?

Thanks for all your help in advance. I've been reading the forums for a while and this is my fitst "biggy post" so any help/advice/thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again.

Paul

YorkshireBoy

AnotherPaul wrote: »

Hello - And Happy New Year!

Having just read through the MSE website about cash "ISA's v Current Accounts", I just wanted some advice/sounding board on my thoughts if possible, please? :

1. My bank where my ISA is will be dropping it's AER from 0.9% to 0.5% very soon.
2. Looking at the examples of £1,000 for 12 months at the two AERs the difference in tax free interest accrueed over 12 months appears to be only a few pounds (£9 as opposed to £5).
3. I have just about £5K in my ISA - so moving my ISA to another ISA/another place to get a better rate - which as of the 1st January 2017 doesn't appear to be much greater than 0.9% AER in most places (keeping it easy access to the cash as well, i.e. not a fixed rate ISA) - wouldn't appear to make that much of a difference to the tax free interest I would get if I left it where it is at the current rate I put money into the ISA.
4. Although pulling all the ISA money out and sticking it in a higher rate current account somewhere else might seem like a short-term good idea, I'm inclined to think that leaving it in the ISA and waiting until the AER's go back up again would probablt be the best thing to do?

And finally.... (a non-related ISA v Account query)....

Might it be sensible to put more money into my company pension on a monthly basis, i.e. before it gets taxed, than to wait until it is taxed and then putting it into an ISA? I know that by putting it into a pension I wouldn't have access to it should I need it in the short term - but I'm thinking it might be the best way to manage my future money if I can afford to do it that way?

Thanks for all your help in advance. I've been reading the forums for a while and this is my fitst "biggy post" so any help/advice/thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again.

Paul

The ISA annual subscription limit is currently just over £15K. It will be £20K from April. How close will you be to those numbers with your own subscriptions this year, and the next, say, 2-3 years? If nowhere near, it's a no brainer (to me) to use high interest current accounts and regular savers, generating 5-10 times the return of an ISA.

As to your pension provision, you haven't given anywhere near enough information to enable any 'advice' to be given. But £5K would be well short of an adequate emergency fund to me (being as it's less than 3 months income for most people, and way less than the often recommended 6 months), so I'd probably avoid additional pension contributions for the time being.

AnotherPaul

Yorkshireboy - hi - thanks for that. Yes, I will be nowhere near the £20K saving limit for the ISA. So I guess it might be worthwhile to move the money out of the ISA into something better - and then maybe move it back again when/if the the ISA rates get better/the current account & savings account rates decrease (bearing in mind that I haven't earned that much tax free interest on the £5K balance - which I would then lose and it become taxable and part of my Personal Allowance).

As regards the pension question - I'm 52 at the moment and this was just a general query as to what might be the best way to save money for the future - put it in my my company pension or when I get paid - put what I can in an ISA/high rate savings account.

Thanks again.

Paul