Club Lloyds.......not quite goodbye

[Deleted User]

After many years, I have moved my balance of £5000 from my Club Lloyds current account to Marcus. I've also cancelled my two direct debits (both have which have paid out in September).

This is in anticipation of the interest rate drop from 1.5% AER to around 1.2% AER (on £5000 balance) which applies from 1 October.

I am no longer chasing interest on this account but will keep it open for the free cinema tickets and for continued access to the Club Lloyds Monthly Saver (2.5%/£400 per month deposit).

I will need to remember to still pay in £1500 each month (and out again) to avoid the £3 monthly fee.

Willing2Learn

I am in the same boat as you. Unsure exactly what I will do (undecided whether to keep the account loaded or not). But will definitely keep the account for my cinema tickets and access to the monthly saver. Why don't you set up a pair of Standing Orders to make the monthly deposit requirements?

I think I am kind of following you lol. (I also opened the Danske account about the same time as you too).

YorkshireBoy

Willing2Learn wrote: »

Why don't you set up a pair of Standing Orders to make the monthly deposit requirements?

Dangerous with a (close to) zero balance Club?

Ed-1

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

Dangerous with a (close to) zero balance Club?

I've started automating these with standing orders. Never failed me so far as standing orders are tried twice in a day so if the first standing order hasn't arrived in time it will go back out later.

Willing2Learn

Personally, I make the monthly deposit requirements manually, as I would worry about the timing of the Standing Order. I was simply suggesting it, as an option for the OP to automate things if they felt manual payments was a bit of a hassle. You could also set up the each Standing Order to be made on differing days.

YorkshireBoy

Willing2Learn wrote: »

Personally, I make the monthly deposit requirements manually, as I would worry about the timing of the Standing Order. I was simply suggesting it, as an option for the OP to automate things if they felt manual payments was a bit of a hassle. You could also set up the each Standing Order to be made on differing days.

I do all mine manually on pay day. Takes about 15-20 mins...and another 10-20mins wait for the stragglers, ie Co-op. Im back to using Halifax as the hub, as that receives my salary. Shortfall is made up by a transfer from Marcus via Santander Lite. Very messy these days. Must get round to changing Marcus' linked account!

The alternative is to go back to a full fat 123. Is £48 per annum a small price to pay for simplicity?

AlwaysLearnin

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

The alternative is to go back to a full fat 123. Is £48 per annum a small price to pay for simplicity?

This is what we ended up deciding (technically, we stayed with 'full fat'). We use it as our main account and therefore need to keep a reasonable balance anyway, so the interest on the balance reduces (covers?) the £48 too. That, in addition to having another source of easy instant access 1.5% savings for the remainder up to £20k, plus avoiding having to move dozens of payments, linked accounts, etc, meant we plumped for "simplicity" over perhaps squeezing a couple of extra £'s out of it.

We've kept our 3 Club Lloyds too. We've reduced the balances to £400 and have a weekly SO's bouncing £375 between them to satisfy the monthly £1500 pay in requirement. We already had 2 x £1 DD's to savings on each, so kept them to still get a bit of interest, so just need to ensure balances stay > £375 (s/b a once a year thing) and it's effectively 18 cinema tickets for about £6 (i.e. 3 x ~£400 x 0.5%, being the difference in interest).

MABLE

I have 3 Club card accounts and on the 1st or 2nd of each month I just do transfers manually between the respective accounts. That way I know it is done.

Lomcevak

AlwaysLearnin wrote: »

This is what we ended up deciding (technically, we stayed with 'full fat'). We use it as our main account and therefore need to keep a reasonable balance anyway, so the interest on the balance reduces (covers?) the £48 too. That, in addition to having another source of easy instant access 1.5% savings for the remainder up to £20k, plus avoiding having to move dozens of payments, linked accounts, etc, meant we plumped for "simplicity" over perhaps squeezing a couple of extra £'s out of it.

I've done the same thing - back in the day when you could have £5k at 4% in Lloyds, £12k at 5% in TSB, plus the 3%-ers, the shuffle round the accounts was well worthwhile, and I had all the usual set. Now, I've cut back to just the TSBs (which shuffle between themselves, with no DDs) and a full-fat 123 with £20k in it that covers all the outgoings (with DDs giving some cashback), and Marcus for the rest. Simplicity seems worth it to me.

JustAnotherSaver

Any idea why you can collect cinema tickets for a solo and joint account (so 18 tickets between you), but if one of the account holders is deceased then you don’t get any cinema tickets? It’s still a joint account is it not? In name at least.

colsten

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

I do all mine manually on pay day. Takes about 15-20 mins...and another 10-20mins wait for the stragglers, ie Co-op. Im back to using Halifax as the hub, as that receives my salary. Shortfall is made up by a transfer from Marcus via Santander Lite. Very messy these days. Must get round to changing Marcus' linked account!

The alternative is to go back to a full fat 123. Is £48 per annum a small price to pay for simplicity?

I am using a full fat 123 as my hub, as that's the simplest set-up I could come up with for my needs. Monthly SOs still go to Halifax, Club Lloyds, COOP, Nationwide, Barclays and all those Regular Savers but I do all the return payments manually as I now don't keep any money in those other current accounts. My DD cashback on the 123 easily pays for the monthly fee, so although I know that in reality I am paying £60 a year for the account, it doesn't feel like such a blow.