Question about the savings limit while on benefits and losing £1 for every £250 over £6000

bspm1

Sunny_Intervals wrote: »

Thank you. I'm a singleton and I already "used up" the 12 months on Nationwide and most of the regular savers. Forgot my TSB accounts are now getting 5% due to the server issues, though. That cheered me up. Not done M&S and FirstDirect yet, though, will look into those.


And don't worry, I have a freakish love of spreadsheets and use them for banking, renovation budget, food budget and everything else, so I won't mock you as I have been mocked for your hobby.

Let them mock away I say, I LOVE earning interest, and yes it is my hobby.

All of the above accounts are the ones I play around with I actually forgot our main bank!!

Santander...............1.5% (not great i know) on balances up to 20.000 but does allow us to have 2 x regular savers at 5% per month.

antrobus

Sunny_Intervals wrote: »

To be fair, the £1 per £250 is ridiculous and out of date. How many benefits claimants are getting a consistent 4.8% APR return on their savings?

I'd rather they were honest and called it a "weekly savings reduction amount" or something.


ETA - Actually, I think that 4.8% is low. That's £1 a month, not a week. Sorry, brain full of PIP silliness. It's more like 20% APR, isn't it?

It's called tariff income and not income for a reason.

The rationale has always been that the claimant will make up the shortfall in their benefits by spending their capital.

bspm1

Sunny_Intervals wrote: »

Ah, I dumped my 123 account. I already used up the 12 months regular saver when I was working and when I took into account the £5 pcm fee, the interest worked out as something pants (technical term , I think it was 1.1 or 1.2%). Ended up with an easy access account from Paragon at 1.3% instead.

Not wishing to turn this post in to a 'how to earn interest' but you are aware that once a regular saver matures, usually at 12 months, you can reopen a new one don't you? You then put the surplus in to another account paying a little less than 5% and drip feed it back. We have had regular savers with First Direct for four years now.

teddysmum

The assumed interest on £250 was way over the top, even when introduced.

pcb123

Thx I've learned alot here I haven't actually got the first idea about savings or Interest and all that I've never had a large sum of money before, but I'm still not sure about the answer to my question, just for a quick bit of background - the house I'm currently living in was owned by a relative who has recently passed away it's going to be put up for sale soon so I'm on the housing execetive list, I have a part share of the house and will receive an amount probably a little over £16k, so I know for a while I won't be entitled to anything until I have spent my way back to under the £16k limit, so if I had say £15k in my account when I started claiming again that would work out at £36 a week less off of my ESA, but I'd also be claiming HB for rent at the time too so would that also be £36 a week off of my HB too?

bspm1

Ames wrote: »

You'd lose £1 from your ESA. As long as you're getting any amount of income related ESA then you'll get full housing benefit.

pcb123 wrote: »

Thx I've learned alot here I haven't actually got the first idea about savings or Interest and all that I've never had a large sum of money before, but I'm still not sure about the answer to my question, just for a quick bit of background - the house I'm currently living in was owned by a relative who has recently passed away it's going to be put up for sale soon so I'm on the housing execetive list, I have a part share of the house and will receive an amount probably a little over £16k, so I know for a while I won't be entitled to anything until I have spent my way back to under the £16k limit, so if I had say £15k in my account when I started claiming again that would work out at £36 a week less off of my ESA, but I'd also be claiming HB for rent at the time too so would that also be £36 a week off of my HB too?

Here is your answer. sorry we got sidetracked

midnight_express

teddysmum wrote: »

The assumed interest on £250 was way over the top, even when introduced.[/QUOT

That's why it is called tariff income and has never been linked to interest rates.

pcb123

Oh ok that's not so bad then that's £160 a month I was worried it might be more, thanks for the help guys

evenasus

bspm1 wrote: »

Let them mock away I say, I LOVE earning interest, and yes it is my hobby.

All of the above accounts are the ones I play around with I actually forgot our main bank!!

Santander...............1.5% (not great i know) on balances up to 20.000 but does allow us to have 2 x regular savers at 5% per month.

You do realise that the 5% regular savers AER is actually 2.68%.

calcotti

teddysmum wrote: »

The assumed interest on £250 was way over the top, even when introduced.

It’s not meant to represent interest only, I think the expectation is that a claimant should also use some of their capital to support them and that capital will slowly decrease.

EDIT - just spotted that antrobus already explained this at post 18.