The Top Easy Access Savings Discussion Area

1Foz

Well, I have about £100 spare each month after I deposited to my FD and Nationwide 5% savers and H2B isa. This £100 currently feeds into 4 accounts for DD purposes to fulfill current account conditions . This is a surplus tho, i.e I don't need to recycle it each month from A to B and back, I have that amount to keep put away each month, but I want it in an easy access in case of emergency. The virgin account seems the best option for that?

polymaff

My mistake. I was thinking of the bigger sums involved in meeting T&Cs.


As the £100 is a regular income it is ideally suited to a regular saver.


Ultra-ultra-MSE...:)

1Foz

Yeah I probably didn't explain it well either. Wherever I put this spare money it needs to be easy access in case I need it for emergency. From what I can see, Virgin Money is the best option for that, just requires branch opening, which isn't a problem. Will setup a continual payment anyway. I don't think many reg savers are easy access like this one.

polymaff

1Foz wrote: »

Yeah I probably didn't explain it well either. Wherever I put this spare money it needs to be easy access in case I need it for emergency. From what I can see, Virgin Money is the best option for that, just requires branch opening, which isn't a problem. Will setup a continual payment anyway. I don't think many reg savers are easy access like this one.

At one time there was a clear difference between easy access and regular saving accounts. Now they seem to be blurring into one - which for the regular account manifests as an ability to withdraw, to skip a payment, not having to deposit on a fixed day of the month, not having to pay in the same amount each month - and lower interest rates...:(

They're still ahead for regular income, as you then do get something like the full headline rate.

p.s. have you costed in the shoe leather wear in those two miles to, and then back, from Virgin?....:)

1Foz

Ha ha I walked in with my shorts and converse luckily this branch in Bmouth is tiny, not even a chair to sit on while waiting...they had a water machine tho (no coffee). Maybe they heard I was coming Had to make an appointment to open the account tho as one person left running the place alone so no time for her to complete an account opening today , which was annoying seeing as it (was) still August . Not that it matters, this account looks good for easy access. Yeah Shane reg saver rates and fixed rates are kinda merging together. How bad is this tho, I even parked a mile away so I wouldn't have to pay to park down there lol. £2.50 per hour...sod that !

murphydavid

Lost track a bit but £100 invested (in and out) at 3% pa is a 25P a month return. If that's what your doing. Hardly worth stooping down to pick it up. A miles walk is good exercise though!

1Foz

murphydavid wrote: »

Lost track a bit but £100 invested (in and out) at 3% pa is a 25P a month return. If that's what your doing. Hardly worth stooping down to pick it up. A miles walk is good exercise though!

Not in/out...it'll grow £100 each month...and in New Year when my First Direct and Nationwide Regular savers mature I'll have some money to drip feed to it aswell (about half of the 3,000 from Nationwide since I need to keep some back to pay Road Tax, Insurance and MOT in March! First Direct one goes to LISA account (with £400 from nationwide). Then I open new ones and start again (M+S one tho instead of nationwide, unless they miraculously reinstate their RS).

So, over a year, I'll expect to get up to about £2000 ish into the Virgin account. Just not a great deal in the next few months. £30-£35 ish interest at a rough guess. Its not bad. Way I look at it, the spare money I save covers my car expenses...its not really a saving to make money, just to make the new year less bothersome

abz88

Coventry easy access ISA account now better than standard savings accounts, is this a trend that other ISA providers will likely follow and with better rates, or is this a something Coventry do as a type of USP (believe it was Coventry that brought out a 1.5% ISA when Marcus was still at 1.5% as well)?

DragonQ

1.5% but it takes a day or more to withdraw money, so not that helpful as a holding account for savings you want to shovel into regular savers, etc.

S_and_J

On the moneysavingexpert savings-accounts-best-interest page, listed under "The best five-year fixed rates", there's United Bank UK with an AER of 2.36%. Looks good, but if you go to the bank's webpage for Fixed Term Deposits and look under "What would the estimated balance be at the end of the selected term based on the minimum required deposit?" on the bank website, you find that the return on a deposit of £2000 after five years is £2236. The website says that this is for an AER of 2.36%, but according to my calculations if it was 2.36%, after five years the balance should be just over £2247. £2236 is what you'd get if the AER was 2.26%.
Am I missing something?