Suggestion! I got over £40K ... what is best option?

Bucki

blue.peter wrote: »

Have you subscribed to an ISA yet this year?


If you're content with 1.5%, yes, the Santander 1-2-3 is a perfectly good easy-access account. With regard to the £5 pm fee, see if you can pay enough bills by DD for the cashback to offset it. Otherwise, it'll cut the effective interest rate quite noticeably.

No, I have not opened any ISA this year. I used to have lloyds ISA a while back but that went down pretty much as well and that is when I moved to Santander 123 (must be over 1 year already).


Unfortunatelly, I do not use Santander apart from keeping money in there, have 2 DD's and get the interest in. Also I don't get any cashback to offset the £5 fee



I am currently trying to pin-point 2 x banks (max) to tackle this but I find it overwhelming.
I am not great in decision making and worry about too many things.

Bucki

abz88 wrote: »

If you are after a simple, easy access savings account, I would suggest you just stick it in Marcus at 1.45% (works out better than Santander123), But if you are a higher rate tax payer, then I would have £20k in the Coventry Easy Access ISA (up to three withdrawls a year without losing interest rate) and then the rest in Marcus.



There are more profitable ways using multiple accounts and standing orders between them all to meet the requirements, but if this is too daunting, the Marcus and Marcus + ISA strategy will be enough to get you started.

Does the Marcus provide unlimited widthrawls?


On their page it states "There may be limits to how much you can take out of your Marcus account online, in one payment or per day. This is to protect your money against fraud." but could not find out if it was a fixed type of thing or easy access? Also not sure what the limit it is?

Also the Marcus bank will go down to 1.35% after 1 year, I think?
does it mean then I need to look out for a new saving account ?

abz88

Bucki wrote: »

Does the Marcus provide unlimited widthrawls?


On their page it states "There may be limits to how much you can take out of your Marcus account online, in one payment or per day. This is to protect your money against fraud." but could not find out if it was a fixed type of thing or easy access? Also not sure what the limit it is?

Also the Marcus bank will go down to 1.35% after 1 year, I think?
does it mean then I need to look out for a new saving account ?

It is easy access, you can make as many withdrawals as you want and it arrives in your linked account within a couple of hours max. If you follow the help link, you get to https://www.marcus.co.uk/uk/en/public-site/help which states "If you need to take out more than £100,000 in one payment, please call our Customer Care Team, on 0800 085 6789, or +44 203 901 3353", so you won't have an issue with your £40k.

Yes, the 0.10% rate ends after a year (although you may be able to renew the bonus rate as is currently the case for another year). But you should be reviewing interest rates fairly regularly anyway and moving away when they drop.

blue.peter

abz88 wrote: »

But you should be reviewing interest rates fairly regularly anyway and moving away when they drop.

... And an easy way to do this is to keep an eye on the MSE Top Savings Account page.

abz88

blue.peter wrote: »

... And an easy way to do this is to keep an eye on the MSE Top Savings Account page.

If that's a suggestion that Marcus is no longer top of easy access because of the new Coventry Account, then yes it is, but Bucki has said he wants easy access to make withdrawals if and when he wants. Coventry limits you to 3 withdrawals a year.

blue.peter

abz88 wrote: »

If that's a suggestion that Marcus is no longer top of easy access because of the new Coventry Account, then yes it is, but Bucki has said he wants easy access to make withdrawals if and when he wants. Coventry limits you to 3 withdrawals a year.

Whatever gave you the idea that I was making that suggestion? You seem to have read something into my post that was not there, not implied and not intended. I was simply pointing out that watching that page was an easy way of doing exactly what you suggested, and nothing more.

(In any case, I wouldn't want to push anyone towards the Coventry BS. I've had an unpleasant experience with their admin.)

abz88

blue.peter wrote: »

Whatever gave you the idea that I was making that suggestion? You seem to have read something into my post that was not there, not implied and not intended. I was simply pointing out that watching that page was an easy way of doing exactly what you suggested, and nothing more.

(In any case, I wouldn't want to push anyone towards the Coventry BS. I've had an unpleasant experience with their admin.)

Apologies, its been a long week at work and I have indeed read into your comment too much!