santander 123

glen_jarvis

Good morniig
I apologise if this has been gone through a thousand times already but im new to the forums and is my first post.I ve had a 123 account for a long time now ,i have no mortgage or any insurance policies with santander i have around £20000 lifetime savings inc an isa with them,i would like to know whether i should switch to somewhere better ,there seems to be some tempting offers ive read on mse or is it worth my while sticking with the cashback this account offers,i put my £1000 a month pay cheque into the account,
regards
Glen Jarvis

18cc

You could think about switching your Santander current account to for example Halifax that would give you an instant £125 plus £3 a month thereafter see terms and conditions

you could put your savings into a one year or a three year bond and get a higher rate of interest assuming you don't want access to your savings for example atom bank or NS&I bonds

Don't know what rate you are getting on the ISA but you could look around and consider a 1 2 or 3 year fixed rate ISA and see if the interest rate is higher than Santander

YorkshireBoy

What's the split of the £20K? ie how much in the ISA and how much in the 123?
What's the interest rate on the ISA?
How much cashback are you getting per month?
How much interest per month on the 123?
By how much are your savings increasing each month?
Are you prepared to put more effort into managing your cash savings or are you looking for a set up and forget approach with one or two accounts going forward (like you have now)?

Neil_Jones

Depending on bills the cashback for either flavour of 123 can be substantial but it depends whether its generating enough to cover the monthly cost on the original account. The Lite version costs £1 a month, still pays the cashback but you get no interest on money in the account.

glen_jarvis

thanks yorkshireboy for reply
most of the money is in the 123 account of which i earn roughly £15 month interest,i calculate that i only just receive £5 cashback for my £5 monthly account fee,
I change all my insurance and utility outgoings annually through price comparison sites but never my bank as i find this somewhat more confusing ,guess it would be easier if bank accounts were on 12 month contracts.
regards
Glen

glen_jarvis

thanks neil
I just replied to yorkshireboy on this subject i only just get £5 back for my fee,but my interest covers not switching to the lite account

glen_jarvis

thanks 18cc i will look into those options

YorkshireBoy

So circa £12K in the 123 and circa £8K in the ISA then.

How many non-cashback generating DDs on the 123?

Downgrading to 123 'Lite' would see a £4 gain due to the £1/mth fee.

Nationwide FlexDirect would pay around £10/mth on £2.5K for the first 12 months.

So you've almost got your 123 interest of £15 covered there...and still have £9.5K to play with. Look at Tesco for 3% on up to £6K, TSB for 3% on up to £1.5K, and you may as well do the Nationwide 5% regular saver for £250/mth.

The above is why I asked if you were prepared to put some effort in.

I understand the only good cash ISA these days is a HTB or LISA. You could almost certainly improve the return on the Santander ISA, and that's without knowing the interest rate!

AndyPK

your not in a bad position, but if you want to open lots of accounts and cycle say £1000 a month round them all (automatically) you could earn a little more