What would Martin say?

xylophone

Have you ever had a Nationwide Flexdirect account?

If not, why not open one and deposit £2500 immediately.

Set up a mid-month same day SOs for £1000 from your existing (non NW) current account to NW and from NW to existing account.

Open a regular monthly saver.

By the end of a year you will have earned interest at a good rate and have a lump sum to help pay off your 0% cards.

You could deposit the balance in a savings account.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/article-1583859/Best-savings-rates-General-savings-Internet-branch.html

Do you have access to a Virgin branch?

https://www.moneywise.co.uk/savings-account/virgin-money/regular-saver-issue-13

badger09

Lakedistrictlover wrote: »

The mortgage is paid off, I am in my 60s. Pension provision quite good. Wouldn't consider investing because I'd like to be able to access the cash quite easily when emergencies occur. The payments to the credit cards are nearly £200 per month so I'd like to save that per month really which is why I considered paying them off even though they are zero percent. I can see the points made here though, that not paying them off could be better because I can get interest on the savings. The main aim is for me to budget better on a monthly basis and have some spare cash to enjoy. Thanks for your interest.

OK

In that case, I would agree with others who say pay the 0% cards off when that 0% runs out.

In the meantime, in addition to xylophone's suggestion of Nationwide FlexDirect and regular saver, you might think about spreading the rest between an instant access account, and a 1 year and a 2 year fixed rate account. That way, your money isn't locked away for too long, but you could squeeze a little more interest from it.

trailingspouse

I think this is your opportunity to make a fresh start with your finances. And also, we're not far off of New Year - time for resolutions!


Find yourself a budgeting app, or put together your own using an XL spreadsheet, or buy a notebook. And then note down everything, starting on 1st Jan.


I find it useful in many ways -
- you can easily compare how much is going out with how much is coming in
- you can see when regular payments are due (eg car insurance) and plan for them
- you can see when regular payments have gone up, and by how much
- you can work out how much something like a holiday has actually cost (as opposed to the 'bare' hotel-and-flights cost)
- because you're checking your bank statements regularly (in order to fill in the budget), you notice straight away if anything unexpected has happened
- you start to get a feel for what you can actually afford.

And another thing - you should never have 'spare' money at the end of the month. Every penny should have a purpose - so anything not needed for immediate expenditure should be ear-marked for the emergency fund, or debt-repayment, or to put towards servicing the car in 3 months' time, or whatever.