Top Bank Accounts Discussion Area

Neo08

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

It shows £125 for me. Did you click the one with the asterisk? If yes, then maybe try deleting cookies and click again?

Yeah clicked the link with the asterisk. Cleared cookies and also tried IE, Firefox and Chrome, all say £100 when clicking. v strange

YorkshireBoy

Neo08 wrote: »

Yeah clicked the link with the asterisk. Cleared cookies and also tried IE, Firefox and Chrome, all say £100 when clicking. v strange

Try the link at www.moneysupermarket.com.

Neo08

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

Try the link at www.moneysupermarket.com.

Was just about to give up and then had a light bulb moment

Kaspersky data collection was blocking it. Disabled it and bingo!

Thanks YorkshireBoy (great county BTW lol)

Beartricks

I was wondering if this is a good idea or if I'm barking up the wrong tree.

I'm ready to start saving to buy a house. At the moment I just have a current account that I don't get a lot of benefits from. I was thinking of organising my money between three accounts.

1: The TSB current account that offers £10 a month or an account that offers a cash bonus to switch. I'll keep enough for monthly expenses in this one. I don't think I'll be paying out enough for the Santander one to be worth it.

2: A high interest account. Probably the Nationwide one. I'll transfer most of my pay cheque to this one each month.

3: A help to buy ISA. I'll pay in the max amount each month, with any luck.

My hope was that I'll be saving as much as possible in the Help to Buy, but because there's a set limit as to what I can put in there I'll be saving the rest of my deposit alongside it in the high interest account, then using the current account to pay for my shopping, bills and take advantage of any free money.

Does this sound like a decent strategy or am I missing something?

Dewpoint

No such thing as a free lunch they say. Check the charges before switching. You could easily end up paying the new bank much more than you received in bribes. All these commercial banks work for their shareholders. I'll stick with Nationwide.

murphydavid

Beartricks wrote: »

I was wondering if this is a good idea or if I'm barking up the wrong tree.

I'm ready to start saving to buy a house. At the moment I just have a current account that I don't get a lot of benefits from. I was thinking of organising my money between three accounts.

1: The TSB current account that offers £10 a month or an account that offers a cash bonus to switch. I'll keep enough for monthly expenses in this one. I don't think I'll be paying out enough for the Santander one to be worth it.

2: A high interest account. Probably the Nationwide one. I'll transfer most of my pay cheque to this one each month.

3: A help to buy ISA. I'll pay in the max amount each month, with any luck.

My hope was that I'll be saving as much as possible in the Help to Buy, but because there's a set limit as to what I can put in there I'll be saving the rest of my deposit alongside it in the high interest account, then using the current account to pay for my shopping, bills and take advantage of any free money.

Does this sound like a decent strategy or am I missing something?

It all depends on the actual amounts you have.
Its not a good idea just to look at percentages. ie Nationwide 5% sounds wow (these days) but if you have £2500 tied into Nationwide you only get max £125 interest in the first year which reduces to £25 pa thereafter and the salary you pay in and out is a loss as no interest once you exceed £2500. or If you tie up £1500 and put £1000 in and out so you get interest on all your deposits then you wont even get £125 the first year. Then there is the loss of interest if you forget to swap to another bank after a year. How much work do you do to earn the £125? Quite a bit with all the messing about - open it - set up dd with HR - set up standing order to ensure salary moves onwards - start again a year later etc. If you do go Nationwide get a friend to refer you and get another £100 its almost as much as any interest you might earn.

PerfectMess

Hi I have been looking at getting the HSBC advance/premier account for the regular saver and switching an account to get the £200 bonus too. Has anyone had luck switching an account with just 2 SO and no DD?

badger09

PerfectMess wrote: »

Hi I have been looking at getting the HSBC advance/premier account for the regular saver and switching an account to get the £200 bonus too. Has anyone had luck switching an account with just 2 SO and no DD?

The switch T&Cs clearly specify 2 DDs OR SOs, which is unusual, but you should have no problem.

That is assuming you are accepted for the account:cool:. HSBC are known to be picky and often the account opening process is long and tedious. Search the forum if you're interested.

Dewpoint

Go for Nationwide Regular Saver and you can save up to £500/mth and get 5% - as good as First Direct but you can can save more each month with N/W. Go for N/W Flexaccount - no monthly charges and as a loyal customer I get free travel insurance too! It pays to stay with the mutuals.

binaryuniverse

murphydavid wrote: »

Its not a good idea just to look at percentages. ie Nationwide 5% sounds wow (these days) but if you have £2500 tied into Nationwide you only get max £125 interest in the first year which reduces to £25 pa thereafter and the salary you pay in and out is a loss as no interest once you exceed £2500. or If you tie up £1500 and put £1000 in and out so you get interest on all your deposits then you wont even get £125 the first year. Then there is the loss of interest if you forget to swap to another bank after a year. How much work do you do to earn the £125? Quite a bit with all the messing about - open it - set up dd with HR - set up standing order to ensure salary moves onwards - start again a year later etc.

I set up a NW account in May. I immediately put £2500 in it. I set up a standing order to go from that to other accounts, I set up £1000 to go from my main account to the NW account. The switch, which I barely had to think about, was done within a couple of weeks. The standing orders took minutes to set up and are taken out automatically each month.
Not sure why you're making it sound as if it's some sort of ordeal. You also sound a little confused on how these work.

And why would you only put in £1500 and not the full £2500?



OP, If you have £2500 you can stash for a year, then a Nationwide FlexDirectis absolutely the first port of call. Put that amount in there and do what I did, above. If you know someone that can offer you a switch referral, take that up too for an extra £100.
If you have more then that, then whatever is left put in to the next highest paying account such as 2 Tesco accounts paying 3% on up to £3000 (but you do need 3 direct debits on each account and pay in £750 a month to get the interest), or TSB paying 3% on up to £1500). If you have even more than that then start cycling whatever is left through regular savers.

Rather than a Help to Buy ISA, are you eligible for a Lifetime ISA? These pay out a bigger bonus than HTB (up to £1000 a year, on £4000).

When you saving for a house, every little helps. I should know, I've started exactly the same journey. :beer: