Regular Savings Accounts: The Best Currently Available List!

KuchKuch

RE: Saffron Building Society The Members’ Month Loyalty Saver

Anybody else find that their deposits from yesterday for this account is being marked as received today? I did a faster payments from my Halifax Current Account direct to my Saffron account at 4:30am yesterday (01/04/2024) and it’s being marked as being deposited on 02/04/2024. Didn’t have this problem in January.

Bridlington1

My regular savers are also being cut back quite significantly and it seems my collection has reached its peak early this year for a while. This month I've paid less than £5k into regular savers for the first time since November 2022, a figure that I expect to fall further by next month.

I'm finishing uni next month and I've not had to worry about paying tax on savings interest during the last 3 years so this has very much expanded my regular saver collection but I'll be needing to access most of my savings in the next month or two for a property purchase (if all goes well) and if I'm successful in finding a decent job I'll be in danger of paying tax on savings interest for the fist time in the next tax year so ISAs will become more important in my savings affairs. Moreover my savings focus will inevitably shift more towards pensions and investments once the property purchase completes at the expense of reducing the total amount available for cash savings.

At the moment I'm currently trying to get a large chunk of my savings interest paid this tax year so will be closing/have already closed many of my regular savers before the end of the tax year. Virtually all of the ones paying 6% or below that are currently available are getting ``refreshed" this week. Since historically Principality's savings accounts have consistently disappeared from moneyfacts before they've been pulled I'm going to hold off reopening the Principality FHS until the last minute so I can push the maturity date until as late as I can. Leeds HDS will be getting closed later today so that I can re-open it with the interest paid to an external account as I can't see myself using the account much in the near future but want to hang on to it just in case it comes in useful. 

My Monmouthshire Coronation RS was due to mature in a few weeks anyway so £600 of the balance has been transferred to my other two MBS regular savers before it gets closed in a couple of days, Nationwide Start to Save Issue 2 is also getting the chop later in the week. HEBS will be getting closed after much consideration as although it is open ended and can be managed online, the £250 minimum monthly deposit does seem a tad steep for an account that will only be kept speculatively and closing it would unlock nearly £50 in accrued interest. The Mansfield 30 day notice regular savers have also been closed as will the two 6.1% ones by the end of the tax year, partly since three of them are branch/post only and partially as I can't see the online one being competitive enough to warrant funding anytime soon.

Despite this culling though I still expect to be left with over 30 regular savers by next month, however for the first time accounts on minimum balances and funding will make up the majority of my collection. I'll be reopening the ones that are still available if they can be opened with £1 and require no further funding (after 6th April) partly to have them on the off chance they come in useful later and by reopening after the start of the next tax year it gives me control over which tax year the interest is paid. Plus I haven't the heart to get rid of them all entirely and the cost of maintaining regular savers at 5.25%+ with £1 balances speculatively is very low.

gwapenut

@Bridlington1
Thanks for your useful list of all regular savers. I've copied them into a spreadsheet and filtered by currently available, and also tied to apply what I think is a useful metric, namely MONTHLY_LIMIT * 12 / 2   (ie approx average balance) multiplied by the (interest rate minus 5% for a variable regsav or 4.5% for a fixed regsav) to give a very rough idea of net gain over a normal account if interest rates stayed the same. I then sort by net gain ... I can't be bothered opening a RS for less than a certain amount per year. I also filter for easy access with notice if necessary but without penalties.

For me, only Club Lloyds, Skipton and CoOp bank stand out. I'll be renewing my Club loyds regsav in the new tax year, which gives me the option of early closure of full term, depending on which tax year I want the interest to count towards.

fun4everyone

Are gatehouse slow at crediting standing orders in?  Had one leave my current account to go into gatehouse at around 1am this morning along with a slew of others.  All the others got credited already (including the ones with a similar system to gatehouse, you send it to their account and the reference is your account number) - but gatehouse hasnt been

fun4everyone

And thanks for the list/all your hard work Bridlington1.  I agree dealing with the tax situation on this amount of regular savers is a pain. I don't always do a tax return, but when I do it includes approx 200 interest certificates.

flaneurs_lobster

fun4everyone said:

Are gatehouse slow at crediting standing orders in?  Had one leave my current account to go into gatehouse at around 1am this morning along with a slew of others.  All the others got credited already (including the ones with a similar system to gatehouse, you send it to their account and the reference is your account number) - but gatehouse hasnt been

Sent deposit to Gatehouse by FP yesterday early AM, notification of credit to account received this AM.

Farway

KuchKuch said:

RE: Saffron Building Society The Members’ Month Loyalty Saver

Anybody else find that their deposits from yesterday for this account is being marked as received today? I did a faster payments from my Halifax Current Account direct to my Saffron account at 4:30am yesterday (01/04/2024) and it’s being marked as being deposited on 02/04/2024. Didn’t have this problem in January.

Maybe due to yesterday being a Bank Holiday?

Hal17

Thank you Bridlington1 for all your efforts in producing the RS list, that was very helpful.

I had forgotten that my wife and I had an old TSB account so we were eligible for their regular saver. I tried to fund the new TSB accounts this morning from our Lloyds account but it did not work. I did read that they wanted it funded by standing order, but then most say that and you don't need too. Anyway set up the standing orders from tomorrow so see if that works. Thanks again.

Frogletina

Thanks Bridlington 1

I had a returned standing order for £1 today, and as it just showed my name I was having difficulty tracing which regular saver it was for.

Turns out it was TSB, and thanks to your list I was able to realise that the minimum amount was £25.

Descrabled

TSB have this peculiar set-up where you cannot transfer directly from the TSB current account to the regular saver.

You can, however, send a faster payment from the TSB current account by adding a new payee, checked by COP of course.

Ms Descrabled sends her £250 by faster payment from her Lloyds current account.