The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

basiaking

£360 pcm? How can this be? I live in a 5 bedroomed house and have the central heating on morning and all evening and all day long at weekends and my gas and electricity bill (dual fuel) is approximately £130 per month. Do you live in a stately home?

DH2

I notice that Santander current account is often mentioned as an alternative to easy access savings accounts because it has an interest rate of 3%, but it also has a monthly fee of £2 which rather defeats the object of the exercise. I have three classic accounts with Bank of Scotland and 3 more with Lloyds (same group). By adding Vantage to them (free), I pay no charges and get interest of 3% on balances between £3 and £5 thousand, thus sheltering up to £30,000 at a far better rate than I can get elsewhere and the money is instantly accessible. As these are basic current accounts there are no rules about having to set up at least 2 direct debits, which is true for some other providers (and also for HBOS's Reward account soon, much to my disgust). The only rules are that you have to pay in £1000 per month and stay in credit. The money doesn't have to come from outside the group so I have a single £1000 going round each of them in turn by standing order each month. Once set up you don't have to do anything except watch the interest come in each month!
The advice given to consider regular savings accounts is well worth taking up. I have 8, again all run by standing order. Most only operate for a year, but my best find was Scottish Building Society's regular saver (alas no longer available) which is still paying 4% nearly 3 years later.
I've always been a rate tart, but I find you have to be devious as well these days!

I-LOV-MONEY

DH2 wrote: »

The money doesn't have to come from outside the group so I have a single £1000 going round each of them in turn by standing order each month. Once set up you don't have to do anything except watch the interest come in each month!

So if account A has £1000 in it, you transfer it to account B, is it okay then to leave account A with less than £1000 in it?

Steve_xx

I-LOV-MONEY wrote: »

So if account A has £1000 in it, you transfer it to account B, is it okay then to leave account A with less than £1000 in it?

Well yes, so long as you don't go into a deficit situation.

innovate

DH2 wrote: »

I notice that Santander current account is often mentioned as an alternative to easy access savings accounts because it has an interest rate of 3%, but it also has a monthly fee of £2 which rather defeats the object of the exercise.

If you play your cards right, you can effectively eliminate the monthly charge, and add some additional money each month, thus effectively getting more than 3% AER.

You do this by exploiting the monthly cashback for qualifying Direct Debits. You can use their calculator to figure out whether it's worth your while.

Of course, it involves moving your DDs to Santander, and having sufficient money in there to pay the DDs. Also, you need to deposit £500 a month to qualify for cashback and interest.

And if you are applying for the 123, you do it via Quidco or Topcashback, who invariably have a nice offer on this account. £55 at Quidco today.

G_M

DH2 wrote: »

I notice that Santander current account is often mentioned as an alternative to easy access savings accounts because it has an interest rate of 3%, but it also has a monthly fee of £2 which rather defeats the object of the exercise.
If you max out the balance in the account, even after factoring in the £2 fee it is a worthwhile savings vessel. Especially if you also take advantage of the cashback earned on certain DD payments for utility bills etc.

I have three classic accounts with Bank of Scotland and 3 more with Lloyds (same group). By adding Vantage to them (free), I pay no charges and get interest of 3% on balances between £3 and £5 thousand, thus sheltering up to £30,000 at a far better rate than I can get elsewhere and the money is instantly accessible.
Many threads and posts on this also. Both Santander and LLoyds current accounts can be used for savings.
As these are basic current accounts there are no rules about having to set up at least 2 direct debits,
Had you added 2 direct debits to each of your LLoyds accounts at the right time, you could be earning 4% on up to £6000 each!
which is true for some other providers (and also for HBOS's Reward account soon, much to my disgust).

The advice given to consider regular savings accounts is well worth taking up. I have 8, again all run by standing order. Most only operate for a year, but my best find was Scottish Building Society's regular saver (alas no longer available) which is still paying 4% nearly 3 years later.
I've always been a rate tart, but I find you have to be devious as well these days!

Regular savings accounts have their place, but

1) are different in that they are not instant access - almost invariably the money is locked away for a year
2) as they involve drip-feeding, you only earn the quoted rate on the 1st month's deposit. The final month's deposit only earns interest for one month, reducing the overall APR

innovate

The interest rate (expressed and advertised as AER, not APR) does not get reduced at all. You just only get 1/12th of it for your deposit in the 12th month, 2/12th for the deposit in the 11th month etc.. But the AER stays the same all the while.

Often people make the mistake to apply the AER to their balance at the end of 12 months, which is of course incorrect.

The MSE Reg Saver calculator can help figuring out the amount of interest to expect : http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/best-regular-savings-accounts#calculator

MrsCautious

I have one Lloyds Vantage account with £6,000 in but I missed the chance of the 4 per cent, so get the 3 per cent up to £5,000 and this week paid in a cheque for £100 short of £10k, which will be paid into a newly opened Santander 123 account ASAP, I got £55 through topcashback for opening the account and have transferred my household bills across which will bring me another £50ish a year. I'm also getting £10 for everyone who uses my referral code and gets going on topcashback so my friends are signing up for Santander through it, I must sound very sad this may sound like a lot of messing about but for some reason it doesn't strike me as as much faffing as would be needed to set up multiple Vantage accounts.

Even the cashier in Lloyds asked me if I was moving my my latest deposit to a Santander 123 account when I said no to her offer of putting it straight into a Lloyds savings account.

I'm hoping to have around £15k in my 123 account early on, then pay in £500 a month, then look at paying a standing order from Santander into a building society regular saver (Derbyshire paying 5 per cent?) for money left from paying the bills from the £500. I have one to another bs from Lloyds.

I'm also a new customer of a cashback credit card and am using this to pay for shopping and petrol where I can, with a direct debit set up to pay the balance in full, this is set up in my Lloyds account but I will change to Santander to squeeze a bit more monthly interest, rather than my outgoings meaning my saved amount is dipping below £5,000 in a month where I pay more on the card.

Sorry if I've gone on a bit, perhaps I am over thinking things but am trying my best to make money available work hard. I don't know, perhaps I sound like I need to get a life

DH2

The £1000 going round all 6 accounts comes out of accounts with £5K in, so never any risk of going overdrawn. All the SO's are the same date so £1000 goes out and comes into each of the 6 with no overall change to the balance of each.
I am aware the Santander account is very good as a main account and that I could have got more from Lloyds by moving some of my DD's, but I did not want to change my main account or spread my DD's around. I have everything in one place, easily controllable and predictable - no nasty surprises. If it aint broke, don't fix it!
All the payments made to the regular savers come from existing savings accounts with lower rates (although still higher than you can get now) so I am always getting extra interest and if I need instant cash I have it readily available in the current accounts.
It pays to be flexible and have a mixture of options.

pbsis

Just got a letter from M&S for my Everyday savings account opened just a few weeks ago. They're dropping the interest rate by a whole 1% from 12th April.

Looks a bit like a smash and grab to me - suggest MSE should think twice about including M&S savings in their top deals list in future...