MSE News: 69% chased by claims management firms in the past year

Nasqueron

Paul_Herring wrote: »

Of course it does - it so totally does. You said



I've just pointed out that, no. They're not. Not with the banks, nor accounts, you cited.

They're a savings account, you're picking an argument by being a pedant about how YOU define savings.

Paul_Herring wrote: »

And certainly not for a cash buffer, which implies you already have the money hanging around looking for somewhere to be deposited.

Your argument was people don't have the money lying around to save in an account paying a "pittance". Having money in an account that pays more than a pittance, whether it's monthly or annually, it's better than nothing.

Paul_Herring wrote: »

But you can't have a (normal, no deposit-limit, short-term-access) savings account with 5%.

But that is a differential you have now introduced so you can continue to argue, you talked about a savings account, now you have been shown to be wrong you change the goalposts so you can keep arguing.

Paul_Herring wrote: »

Only one where you can drip feed a couple of hundred quid a month in, which averages out to under 3% using those numbers, presuming you're using the 1.5% account to drip feed into the 5% one. And even then you can only drip feed £2,400 into the account over it's lifetime, then you have to start-over from scratch.

So, (roughly, and assuming your "6 months buffer" is £5,000)

£2,600*1.5% = £39 (the amount that will never see 5%)
£2,400*1.5%/2 = £18 (of the money that will see it, effectively half of it will be earning 5%)
£2,400*5%/2 = £60

So a total of £117 on £5,000 which is... 2.34%.

Still a pittance. And that's before tax.

I don't pay tax on my savings as I'm under the limit. If you're on a higher rate 45% tax you should be able to save a lot more than someone like me on lower rate/

Paul_Herring wrote: »

And it's worse if your '6 months' buffer is more like £10,000 (1.92%) though I suppose if you open another 3 current accounts (and associated regular savings accounts!,) you could get that closer to 3.25% using those 1.5% and 5% rates on account.)

Plenty of options available with the money if you're prepared to work. You make it sound like it's impossible to do instead of a few minutes work a month

Paul_Herring wrote: »

I'm not being difficult, and I am prepared. But I'll stick with the where I've got my 6 month's buffer TYVM. Which isn't in savings accounts, accessible within a month ('immediately' if a CC is used in the interim, and paid off on the next payment cycle,) and earning more than shuffling money between current and savings accounts.

Clearly you are because you have to do a bit of work to get the interest and you're arguing against that work

Paul_Herring wrote: »

But it still means I have under £5,000 "saved" if I were to answer the question in that questionnaire as presented, even though I'm not in the position of the "57%" I'm alluded to be.

So. My original point stands. I'm apparently part of the 57%, but how that 57% figure is being bandied about is wrong by implying that they're all utterly unprepared and utter spendthrifts - either the question is wrong, or the conclusions being drawn from the answers are wrong.

Or both.

You either put money aside for a rainy day or you don't. It's a simple question, you have deliberately made it very complicated to argue a point that you're wrong about just to keep arguing. If you have access to savings of 2-3 months salary then you say yes. Or you don't take part in the survey.

[Deleted User]

Why is there a long off-topic discussion about Bank savings percentage rates on this thread? This thread is about people being chased by claim management companies! :eek:

Please start another thread on a relevant part of the forum if you wish to continue the other discussion.:)

HornetSaver

£5k as an emergency fund is a good rule of thumb target, as it should be able to keep most people ticking over for at least three months should the need arise, and many for up to six. And yet, 57% having less than £5k of cash savings is an odd statistic to use.

There are relatively few emergencies I can think of where you would need access to more than a grand instantly. Within a fortnight or a month, sure, but not on the spot.

Paul_Herring

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

Why is there a long off-topic discussion about Bank savings percentage rates on this thread? This thread is about people being chased by claim management companies! :eek:

Because it's actually on-topic, if you actually read the article instead of just the headline?