people still messing with loads of accounts?

joeblags

do people still mess around with 20 accounts now to earn £2 a month in interest.... i use to be well into the free money with several accounts but shut them all down mostly, Lloyds still seems ok, club Lloyds and a club Lloyds saver and monthly saver plus 6 cinema tickets a year makes it worth it. along with a tsb account ,i only kept this open because its the only bank that isn't in a town centre! Halifax as my main account and that's it!

i am curious though if there are people still messing around opening accounts to gain 0.1% over another account they had money in... honestly the hassle isn't worth it at all. if you have enough money to fill 20 accounts then you cant be short of the £2 a month from all the accounts

stehouk

I think the people that chase every penny don't actually need the money at all, it's the thrill of the chase getting the latest offerings and probably more of a hobby (not a bad hobby to have though).
It can be addictive, I'm always on the look out for the latest deals but I don't chase every penny, I stick to bank switches and good regular savers etc.
One thing that irks me a little is the people that waste money and are in more need of the money are the ones that don't do anything, no bank switches no regular savers and paying Interest on credit cards.

Zero_Sum

In most cases its a bit more than £2 a month. But a few quid here& a few quid there all adds up so can get a decent little sum across the board each month.

But as above poster says, it's also a bit of a hobby. I don't "need" the extra cash, but I tend to just invest it all for a little extra in my retirement

YorkshireBoy

I wouldn't start out now, but since all my £2 generating accounts require almost zero maintenance I've let them run.

Lots of other accounts have gone, e.g. some BOS Vantage, Lloyds Vantage and some Tesco over the years, and many of them were switched to Santander last year for £500 or so.

As a result I only now have one donor account, Santander, ready for a switch. However, should a decent (ie lax T&Cs) switch offer come along, I'd probably sacrifice 3 of my Halifax accounts along with the Santander.

Zero_Sum

stehouk wrote: »

One thing that irks me a little is the people that waste money and are in more need of the money are the ones that don't do anything, no bank switches no regular savers and paying Interest on credit cards.

And what's worse is that when you point out all the little ways you can generate a bit extra cash, it's just met with derision. "I'm not doing that, too much hassle, it's being tight/greedy" etc.

DCFC79

Takes no time at all to do the switch, set the DD's up and its done.

abz88

I'd agree with it being a hobby. I also don't 'need' it but I look at it as paying for my sky tv every month which justified it to the OH to upgrade to Sky Q.
Currently running rewards with Coop, Barclays (with switch), Santander, RBS and Natwest which gets me about £28 a month after the RBS/Natwest changes come in. Then Nationwide (last month of it) and TSB for interest. Then its RS for savings given how poor % rates are in instant access savings just now
I don't 'need' a pay rise either, but I wouldn't turn one down!

I was always taught, 'look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves", pretty much how I go about my banking

colsten

joeblags wrote: »

do people still mess around with 20 accounts now to earn £2 a month in interest

I do still have plenty of accounts. It's fewer than I used to have since some of them just make no sense at all any longer. Several of my current accounts now have a balance of zero but I keep them going as they give me access to good Regular Savings accounts. I never "messed about" with my accounts, and I get way more than £2/mth from each of the ones with money in them.

stehouk wrote: »

I think the people that chase every penny don't actually need the money at all, it's the thrill of the chase getting the latest offerings and probably more of a hobby (not a bad hobby to have though).

what are your criteria for needing money? Is saving for old age or a house or a wedding or a holiday a valid need in your eyes, or a mere "thrill"? As for me, I am not getting any thrill out of moving my money around, and I don't consider it a hobby. It's more of a necessity to protect my money from inflation as best I can.

masonic

I wouldn't open new accounts for benefits of less than about a fiver a month, and have been making use of switching incentives to reduce the number of existing accounts I hold with benefits below that level.

I still have a use for an account that allows me to deposit the occasional cheque using a mobile app, of which there are few options, accounts with interest rates above 2%, and will always seek to retain at least two accounts with independent back-end systems.

Bobblehat

colsten wrote: »

….. what are your criteria for needing money? Is saving for old age or a house or a wedding or a holiday a valid need in your eyes, or a mere "thrill"? As for me, I am not getting any thrill out of moving my money around, and I don't consider it a hobby. It's more of a necessity to protect my money from inflation as best I can.

Totally agree, Colsten, not so much a thrill or hobby but a way to hedge against inflation and to save for items that would otherwise eat into my capital.

It started as a necessity when I was made redundant at 60 with only two very small company pensions to pay the bills until State Pension kicked in, every extra £ was a bonus. When those pounds start to creep into the 4 figure bracket (pa) with switching, and carefully chosen savings interest, then it didn't seem like having lots of CA's and RS's (etc) was a hobby or a faff … it was something I had to do! It was something I learned about on this forum (thanks everyone!).

Years later, while not so much a necessity now, the habit of using the accounts to generate an inflation beating interest figure (harder now than then!) seems to me to be just plain common sense and while it takes a little of my time to maintain, and look for new opportunities as older ones drop off, I think it's worth it.

Katiehound

What hasn't been mentioned so far is the fact that the switch 'game' may net £100 or more just by switching which is possibly (probably) a good deal more than any interest earned.
One Tesco account switched to my existing Halifax thereby earning £135 and the other switched to existing Barclays attracting double 'blue rewards' for a further year.That alone earns £11 per month.

Do I need it? Not really but it is a bit of a hobby. having brought up as a child where money was extremely tight I learned the valueof having money in the pocket.

When friends complain about the dreadful interest rates I tell them that they could earn rather more switching- but they can't be bothered! Nuff said.