First Direct Reg Saver close early dilemma?

fuzzgun19

I have a FD reg saver that's been going for a few months @ £300pm.

I need to buy a car and have a bit of a dilemma.

I can get together 3.5K cash towards it,and 1.4K part ex but would have the rest on finance.
The dealer came up with figures, and it was £2330.00 @ 15.90% APR. The rest is on 0% deal.

My thinking is, do I take the hit on the interest on £2330, or should I close my FD Saving account and use some of that to avoid the interest.
I can't work out the APR thing, and wondered how it would compare to losing the £90 ish interest I would have got from FD?

Hope that makes sense.

colsten

Use a loan calculator, e.g. http://www.moneysupermarket.com/loans/calculator/ to work out what the loan costs you. Although your car dealer should be telling you what the total cost is.

eskbanker

fuzzgun19 wrote: »

do I take the hit on the interest on £2330, or should I close my FD Saving account and use some of that to avoid the interest.
I can't work out the APR thing, and wondered how it would compare to losing the £90 ish interest I would have got from FD?

Think of it as redirecting funds that would be earning 5% and using them to avoid paying 15.9%, and the answer should then be self-evident! Read http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/pay-off-debts for further explanations....

grumbler

Can you repay the loan at any time you want?
By closing the regular saver you lose the interest already earned, i.e. approx.(balance)*3% . Compare this to the total cost of the same amount taken as a finance.

fuzzgun19

grumbler wrote: »

Can you repay the loan at any time you want?
By closing the regular saver you lose the interest already earned, i.e. approx.(balance)*3% . Compare this to the total cost of the same amount taken as a finance.

I'm not sure I think so but will have to double check.

colsten wrote: »

Use a loan calculator, e.g. http://www.moneysupermarket.com/loans/calculator/ to work out what the loan costs you. Although your car dealer should be telling you what the total cost is.

Thanks. Looks like it's over £900 in interest!

Does anyone know how quickly I can close a FD ref saver and access the money?

YorkshireBoy

When you begin to re-build your emergency savings, be sure to choose a provider who doesn't penalise early withdrawal, eg Nationwide or Santander...who both pay the same 5% AER FD do on their regular savers.

fuzzgun19

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

When you begin to re-build your emergency savings, be sure to choose a provider who doesn't penalise early withdrawal, eg Nationwide or Santander...who both pay the same 5% AER FD do on their regular savers.

Thanks. I'm hoping I can access the first direct saver money within a few days, does anyone know?

bigadaj

fuzzgun19 wrote: »

I have a FD reg saver that's been going for a few months @ £300pm.

I need to buy a car and have a bit of a dilemma.

I can get together 3.5K cash towards it,and 1.4K part ex but would have the rest on finance.
The dealer came up with figures, and it was £2330.00 @ 15.90% APR. The rest is on 0% deal.

My thinking is, do I take the hit on the interest on £2330, or should I close my FD Saving account and use some of that to avoid the interest.
I can't work out the APR thing, and wondered how it would compare to losing the £90 ish interest I would have got from FD?

Hope that makes sense.

It's unusual to get a part 0% finance deal, what is the value split of this?

That's a very high Apr, though dealers may often talk flea rate which is about half and suds more reasonable. Apr is more relevant though.

You can obviously get personal loans from banks for half or a third of that rate, or a 0% credit card could be a lot cheaper even allowing for the charge the dealer would probably want for accepting to to cover his costs.

YorkshireBoy

fuzzgun19 wrote: »

Thanks. I'm hoping I can access the first direct saver money within a few days, does anyone know?

The T&Cs say closure by secure message, so I'm guessing same/next day...maybe longer at the weekend.

But it's Saturday night, not many around, even fewer would have experience of closing early, and FD are renowned for their telephone based customer service. So ring them?

Vortigern

I did an early closure once. It was done immediately by phone and the cash returned to my current account.

The reason for this closure was that firstdirect had announced an increased interest rate for the regular saver, shortly after I'd opened one at the previous lower rate.

fuzzgun19

bigadaj wrote: »

It's unusual to get a part 0% finance deal, what is the value split of this?

That's a very high Apr, though dealers may often talk flea rate which is about half and suds more reasonable. Apr is more relevant though.

You can obviously get personal loans from banks for half or a third of that rate, or a 0% credit card could be a lot cheaper even allowing for the charge the dealer would probably want for accepting to to cover his costs.

They said anything over 5k incurs interest which is £2.3k.

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

The T&Cs say closure by secure message, so I'm guessing same/next day...maybe longer at the weekend.

But it's Saturday night, not many around, even fewer would have experience of closing early, and FD are renowned for their telephone based customer service. So ring them?

Thanks, I will call them tomorrow.