Have Reg Savers had their day? What are alternatives?

Malkytheheed

Why would anyone in their right mind Scrabble around for returns of 1% here and 2% there? Trying to make income from savings account is totally ridiculous. Invest your money in property, bonds, stocks and companies. Hell I got a 42% return on my investments last year. 1-2% is ridiculous I am afraid. 

ctdctd

colsten said:

Huggy_Bear said:

ColdIron said:

The thing is it all adds up.

I'm planning how I can drip feed into a couple of accounts, poss 3 with a lump sum from my Marcus a/c which is dropping down to 1.3 %, so I'm planning:

Coventry BS @2.5% £500 per month

Virgin RS @2% £250 per month

Principality @2% £500 per month

Yes it takes a bit of effort to set up transfers, but I'm not earning a f/t salary at the moment so wanting to make the most of the savings I have. If I get this right I'll get £176 in interest (brain can't quite work out what that figure would be if I left the lump sum alone in Marcus at 1.3%)

You need 12 x £500 = £6,000 plus 12 x £750 = £9,000, i.e. a total of £15,000 in Marcus. At 1.3%, that's £195 interest after a year.

Dripfeeding as per your plan will yield a total of £268, so £73 more (~37% more) than if you left the money in Marcus.

You can use the MSE Regular Saver calculator to verify these numbers.

Or, if you don't need the funds for a year:-

Put in all in a 1 year fix at 1.65% to get £15000 x 1.65% = £247.50

If you do it via Raisin this month, you also get a £50 bonus as a new customer or £25 as existing.

This beats the RS calculations and only one account to open and one bonus to claim!

colsten

Malkytheheed said:

Why would anyone in their right mind Scrabble around for returns of 1% here and 2% there? Trying to make income from savings account is totally ridiculous. Invest your money in property, bonds, stocks and companies. Hell I got a 42% return on my investments last year. 1-2% is ridiculous I am afraid. 

What's totally ridiculous is to try and ridicule people who have a cash fund. Even more ridiculous to compare very high risk investments with savings.

RG2015

Malkytheheed said:

Why would anyone in their right mind Scrabble around for returns of 1% here and 2% there? Trying to make income from savings account is totally ridiculous. Invest your money in property, bonds, stocks and companies. Hell I got a 42% return on my investments last year. 1-2% is ridiculous I am afraid. 

You are assuming that everyone wants to maximise the income from their surplus cash.

I have some spare cash and need to choose where to keep it. I can save it all in Marcus and get 1.5% (currently) or transfer some into regular savers or high interest current accounts at 2% to 5%. 

This is easy and I earn just above inflation. If I don’t need any more why would I want to scrabble around for any extra income?

Huggy_Bear

ctdctd said:

Or, if you don't need the funds for a year:-

Put in all in a 1 year fix at 1.65% to get £15000 x 1.65% = £247.50

If you do it via Raisin this month, you also get a £50 bonus as a new customer or £25 as existing.

This beats the RS calculations and only one account to open and one bonus to claim!

Thank you - I already have cash in fixed term savings at 1.85% and 1.7% and I have a sum in investments.

I save £250 per month so I accumulate a pot to spend on household bills (car and house insurance, oil, MOT etc) I save this all in the year before I need to spend it. So last year I put £250 into Nationwide saver at 5% - it will all be spent in March  :'(

So I want to do the same with £250 this year in a 2% a/c and I'm thinking I can take advantage of one offering more on £500 per month. I want to max this money as I use it to top up my p/t wage

When my fixed term a/c mature later this year they will go in another fixed term - I'll check out Raisin then

Notepad_Phil

Malkytheheed said:

Why would anyone in their right mind Scrabble around for returns of 1% here and 2% there? Trying to make income from savings account is totally ridiculous. Invest your money in property, bonds, stocks and companies. Hell I got a 42% return on my investments last year. 1-2% is ridiculous I am afraid. 

And given that must be in high risk assets, next year you might get a -42% return or even worse.

I have a lot of money in investments, I also have a lot of money in cash, I'm pretty sure I'm not being totally ridiculous to care about getting the best out of my cash savings.

pearl123

I suppose the alternative is the stock market, but there you take risks.
I will be sticking with regular savers. The situation re saving rates is pretty dire.