Multiple Accounts - when to consolidate?

Sea_Shell

Hi all.

We have most of the Interest Paying Current Accounts and Reg Savers, plus some fixed rate deals etc. Obviously we want to make our money work as hard as it can for us, to enable early retirement in the not to distant future.

At the moment I have the time, inclination, need and mental agility to manage all this, but I realise that at some stage we'll probably need to simplify this all down to a more manageable number of accounts (for our own sanity if nothing else!!)

Do I really want to be doing all this in my dotage.

At what point have you decided "enough is enough" and just simplified your banking...or are you still happy to jump through all the hoops for those extra few £££ a month.

Would you wait until you reach an age where you'll be drawing your pensions, so you know what money you have coming in on a regular basis, and if that is enough??

Interested in what your plans are. Thanks:beer:

EssexExile

It must be very personal, I'm receiving my pension but I don't think I'm in my dotage yet! I still have money spread about but to be honest with rates as they are at the moment I don't fuss too much. If you've got any amount of money you still have to spread it about to keep under the £85,000 protection limit in each institution. Other than that, I try to spend it as fast as I can but being thrifty is a hard habit to break!

colsten

EssexExile wrote: »

It must be very personal, I'm receiving my pension but I don't think I'm in my dotage yet! I still have money spread about

Same here.

EssexExile wrote: »

I try to spend it as fast as I can but being thrifty is a hard habit to break!

Let me know if you need any help spending money. I am absolutely ace at it and would be delighted to help

Snakey

I don't think it's a question of "when I get old". I think it's more that, in the context of a lifetime, this whole multiple-accounts thing (switching bonuses, interest on the first £x, minimum pay-ins and direct debits, regular savers and so on) is going to be a "do you remember when people used to...?" thing akin to saving up Green Shield Stamps or having £100 in multiple building society accounts in the hope they'd demutualise and you'd get shares.

Personally I've had pretty much every switching bonus there is, and interest is being cut all over the place. It's just regular savers now, and it can all be done with a senility-proof circuit of standing orders as long as you're not so desperate to save every last cent that you can't bear to leave money in situ for 2-3 days as a safety margin.

I shall be surprised if we are not all doing something entirely different in a couple of years' time.

enthusiasticsaver

I think it is all relative. We had numerous high interest current accounts and regular savers for the last few years and made a lot on interest, switching bonuses etc but my husband retired last year and I retire this year so we decided to simplify our finances especially as many of the banks lowered their interest rates and or maximum balances they would pay interest on. We calculated the interest we would receive and in many cases decided we were not prepared to carry on with the constant transferring and setting up direct debits for an extra £50 interest over the year.

We keep our emergency cash in high interest current accounts (Santander 123 and Tesco). We have a slush emergency cash fund in National Savings monthly investment account and the rest in stocks and shares isas and sipps.

trailingspouse

My father's 81 - he still has an active interest in all his investments, moves money around as he sees fit and reconsiders his entire portfolio every couple of years.

Jennifer_Jane

I'm 70 and had almost all of the good offers, and now have odd little sums of money in peripheral accounts, and, of course, little £1 direct debits all over the place. I've now become interested in other things, and can't be bothered with checking that everything is hunky-dory every few weeks. So when I have some spare time, I will be closing or switching into accounts, and will keep open the useful ones.

Ken68

Hi SS....at age 81 (and sometimes feeling muddled) had set a target of next August and then consolidate into NS and I and/or whatever. Then along came renewal of M&S and First Direct Regular Savers and now all the Virgins and have just opened an HSBC 3% saver this morning. So looks like next April. Could start the wind down with the 2.2% Government Bond.

Newly_retired

Despite my name I have now been retired nearly ten years and I still plays all these games, but I am getting weary of them.
I have more or less decided not to risk S&S ISAs. I had one once but lost a lot back in 2008, and it took a number of years to get back what I had lost. Now my money is for spending( but I am too thrifty ), saving for care home fees, or, if there is any left, my children will inherit. i realise that cash savings are struggling to beat inflation, so I do think it is worth jumping through a few hoops to get what interest I can.
Although I am risk averse, I am taking the risk of keeping more than the £85k protected limit in a very reputable building society, to reduce my tax bill, as well as the various current and regular savings accounts. Not ideal, but not a lot one can do.

Sea_Shell

Thanks for all your replies. Interesting.:beer:

Let hope that "in the future" you can just get a standard savings account each paying a reasonable interest rate, so we can just stick all (up to £85k of course) in there and be done with it. Then just have a current account each for bills/spending, and a couple of S&S ISAs.

6 accounts has got to be easier to manage than 40!!! :eek: (yes I just added them all up!!!! - some aren't full though !!);)

Shakin_Steve

With inflation hitting 2.6% last month, even the Tesco accounts paying 3% are only just keeping pace at the moment. If it starts to creep even higher and the BoE has to consider raising interest rates, maybe the banks will start paying a decent rate as well. That would negate the need for the merry go round although, I guess, some would still pay more than others.
After reading the sage advice on here, I opened two Tesco accounts, paying about £7.50 each month in interest. I was somewhat deflated when I popped into a coffee shop with my wife and realised we had just blown a whole months interest on two coffees.