Regular Savings Accounts: The Best Currently Available List!

pecunianonolet

Can somebody just in simple terms expalin why everyone jumps at the reg savers with often just small pay in amounts, even at as high of 7% rates? Why have many 10+ on the go at the same time. Makes even less sense to me if you can't drip feed. Is it not just a lot easier to put the lump sum in a 1y fix instead while the rates are still attractive?

E.g., drip feed from 2.81% Al Ryan to Monmouthshire 5.5% with 200 monthly payments only makes it a 4.25% rate. I can better put that in a 1y fix straight away e.g. 4.35% Atom and still make more but without all the fuss. Plus, I can select monthly interest and I can spread my gains over two tax years to utilise the PSA as much as possible. 

I might be totally wrong and miss the point of why reg savers seem to excite everyone so much.

Band7

pecunianonolet said:

Can somebody just in simple terms expalin why everyone jumps at the reg savers with often just small pay in amounts, even at as high of 7% rates? Why have many 10+ on the go at the same time. Makes even less sense to me if you can't drip feed. Is it not just a lot easier to put the lump sum in a 1y fix instead while the rates are still attractive?

E.g., drip feed from 2.81% Al Ryan to Monmouthshire 5.5% with 200 monthly payments only makes it a 4.25% rate. I can better put that in a 1y fix straight away e.g. 4.35% Atom and still make more but without all the fuss. Plus, I can select monthly interest and I can spread my gains over two tax years to utilise the PSA as much as possible. 

I might be totally wrong and miss the point of why reg savers seem to excite everyone so much.

Many of the RSs allow withdrawals or early closure. 99% of all non-ISA fixed term accounts don't allow either. 

t1redmonkey

People don't necessarily have a lump sum ready to put somewhere all in one go either, so Regular Savers allow people to put excess money from their monthly pay (for example) into a Regular Saver each month.

Bigwheels1111

pecunianonolet said:

Can somebody just in simple terms expalin why everyone jumps at the reg savers with often just small pay in amounts, even at as high of 7% rates? Why have many 10+ on the go at the same time. Makes even less sense to me if you can't drip feed. Is it not just a lot easier to put the lump sum in a 1y fix instead while the rates are still attractive?

E.g., drip feed from 2.81% Al Ryan to Monmouthshire 5.5% with 200 monthly payments only makes it a 4.25% rate. I can better put that in a 1y fix straight away e.g. 4.35% Atom and still make more but without all the fuss. Plus, I can select monthly interest and I can spread my gains over two tax years to utilise the PSA as much as possible. 

I might be totally wrong and miss the point of why reg savers seem to excite everyone so much.

For me it’s easy access and low cost if needed. Emergency funds.
My 3 year 4.4% YBS ISA costs 180 days interest £220 on 10k
FD regular saver spare cash, Al Rayan easy access, Chase funds FD the day before so keeps the 2.1% 
each month until moved.

pecunianonolet

Band7 said:

Many of the RSs allow withdrawals or early closure. 99% of all non-ISA fixed term accounts don't allow either. 

Yes, but withdrawls and/or closure come with interest penalties.

ForumUser7

pecunianonolet said:

Band7 said:

Many of the RSs allow withdrawals or early closure. 99% of all non-ISA fixed term accounts don't allow either. 

Yes, but withdrawls and/or closure come with interest penalties.

@pecunianonolet Loads of regular saver accounts don’t have penalties. NatWest and RBS Digital Regular Savers, Lloyds and BoS Monthly Savers and more! Lots at least allow penalty free closure (like principality Christmas RSB and their RSBI30, and Halifax RS). Some allow limited access (I.e. limited withdrawals) Granted, HSBC and First Direct, Monmouthshire and some others have penalties, but there is loads from other providers that don’t. Have a look at SS2s first page summaries (last updated early November I believe) - those give a very good brief overview of the best Regular savers at that time.

t1redmonkey

pecunianonolet said:

Band7 said:

Many of the RSs allow withdrawals or early closure. 99% of all non-ISA fixed term accounts don't allow either. 

Yes, but withdrawls and/or closure come with interest penalties.

Most of them don’t have penalties these days.

cricidmuslibale

pecunianonolet said:

Can somebody just in simple terms expalin why everyone jumps at the reg savers with often just small pay in amounts, even at as high of 7% rates? Why have many 10+ on the go at the same time. Makes even less sense to me if you can't drip feed. Is it not just a lot easier to put the lump sum in a 1y fix instead while the rates are still attractive?

E.g., drip feed from 2.81% Al Ryan to Monmouthshire 5.5% with 200 monthly payments only makes it a 4.25% rate. I can better put that in a 1y fix straight away e.g. 4.35% Atom and still make more but without all the fuss. Plus, I can select monthly interest and I can spread my gains over two tax years to utilise the PSA as much as possible. 

I might be totally wrong and miss the point of why reg savers seem to excite everyone so much.

Let’s say, just as an example, you have £1000 of new savings available at the start of each month. You could (a) place it all in traditional easy access accounts paying a maximum of 3% AER at the moment, giving you up to £2.47 per month (3% AER = 2.96% monthly interest) for each account that was up and running. [The monthly interest amounts, if left in the accounts, would compound over 12 months to give an annual total of c.£30 per account.]

Or (b) place the £1000 per month in one or more (if minimum deposit < £1k) 1 year fixed rate account(s) paying c.4.3% monthly interest at the moment. This would give you c.£3.58 per month for each fixed rate account that was active at the time. [If not paid away, c.£3.58 per month earned on an initial amount of £1000 compounds over 12 months to give c.£43.50 in total.]

Or (c) place the £1000 per month into two or more regular savers (assuming maximum monthly deposit of £500 or lower) paying 5% annual interest. [Higher interest rates than 5% are of course available with some regular savers at the moment.] Though you would have to wait for at least 12 months from opening each regular saver for interest to be paid, you would still be earning c.£4.17 per month (= £50 per year) for every £1000 deposited into these regular savers.

I hope the examples above are helpful.

gt94sss2

I just opened a HSBC Regular Saver. It was opened, funded and showed online immediately as did the monthly standing order.

HSBC have obviously worked on their back end systems. Opening a Global Money Account was equally as quick.

Its still showing as 1% though!

pecunianonolet

cricidmuslibale said:

pecunianonolet said:

Can somebody just in simple terms expalin why everyone jumps at the reg savers with often just small pay in amounts, even at as high of 7% rates? Why have many 10+ on the go at the same time. Makes even less sense to me if you can't drip feed. Is it not just a lot easier to put the lump sum in a 1y fix instead while the rates are still attractive?

E.g., drip feed from 2.81% Al Ryan to Monmouthshire 5.5% with 200 monthly payments only makes it a 4.25% rate. I can better put that in a 1y fix straight away e.g. 4.35% Atom and still make more but without all the fuss. Plus, I can select monthly interest and I can spread my gains over two tax years to utilise the PSA as much as possible. 

I might be totally wrong and miss the point of why reg savers seem to excite everyone so much.

Let’s say, just as an example, you have £1000 of new savings available at the start of each month. You could (a) place it all in traditional easy access accounts paying a maximum of 3% AER at the moment, giving you up to £2.47 per month (3% AER = 2.96% monthly interest) for each account that was up and running. [The monthly interest amounts, if left in the accounts, would compound over 12 months to give an annual total of c.£30 per account.]

Or (b) place the £1000 per month in one or more (if minimum deposit < £1k) 1 year fixed rate account(s) paying c.4.3% monthly interest at the moment. This would give you c.£3.58 per month for each fixed rate account that was active at the time. [If not paid away, c.£3.58 per month earned on an initial amount of £1000 compounds over 12 months to give c.£43.50 in total.]

Or (c) place the £1000 per month into two or more regular savers (assuming maximum monthly deposit of £500 or lower) paying 5% annual interest. [Higher interest rates than 5% are of course available with some regular savers at the moment.] Though you would have to wait for at least 12 months from opening each regular saver for interest to be paid, you would still be earning c.£4.17 per month (= £50 per year) for every £1000 deposited into these regular savers.

I hope the examples above are helpful.

@cricidmuslibale Thank you very much for this detailed calculation. I am sure this is of help for many. In your example, I would after 5 months (c) with a £500 PSA already pay tax considering £1000 savings/month. On top comes in my case interest from 6, 9 & 12 months fixes with Atom (monthly interest) to get as much into this tax year). The fixes mature in time to repay a large stoozing pot (unless I can push further into the future). I also want to max out my 20k ISA allowance each year.