Halifax regular saver

colsten

unwina said:

I managed to open it on the 26th hoping to open the wife's the following day. Sadly Hfx dropped the rate from 2% to 1.5% overnight so she decided to keep it in her Marcus that expires in August with currently a rate of 1.2% (inc bonus) but it will drop after August 30th to 1.05% unless they reduce it even more by then!.

On the strategy aspect - I was told that my next payment could not be made until 1st July as the payment I made on 26th was for June. I was hoping to get the full percentage possible though but I'm not sure that will be the case as I will lose 3 days until the 1st and then 3/4 days after the 26th. 

I should really have checked also the end of the 12 months and tried to get it to fal;l on a saturday to get the weekend days at the end too. (Based on their rules of weekends)

Has your wife got the Coventry 1.85% one already? If not, why not just abandon the Halifax RS? It's a variable rate but as and if they drop it any further (it recently came down from 2.5%), you can still pick up the Halifax again. 

unwina

No she hasn't, neither of us has. At first I wondered if it was like the Hfx one and only available to existing customers but it seems available to all. Thing is though she is with Marcus and, unless they change again, which is highly likely in current climate, she is earning slightly more than the Coventry option and not having to worry about new S/O's and other aspects of pain that goes with creating a completely new account. At £6000, £500 a month its a really close run thing if she gets the S/O dates right. At least for me the Hfx one is fixed for 12 months so its set and go. 
Thanks for the steer though, it's clear there are still some close run options out there.

colsten

She is not earning slightly more in Marcus than in Coventry, as Marcus is 1.05% and Coventry 1.85%. Use the MSE RS calculator to work out the actual numbers in £££.

If you are new to regular savers. there might be some other, even better, options than the Coventry. 

unwina

colsten said:

She is not earning slightly more in Marcus than in Coventry, as Marcus is 1.05% and Coventry 1.85%. Use the MSE RS calculator to work out the actual numbers in £££.

If you are new to regular savers. there might be some other, even better, options than the Coventry. 

Her Marcus is currently giving 1.20% until end of August whereas whilst Coventry looks like its more in real terms its equivalent is really only at best 0.99%. even at 1.05% if she leaves it in the Marcus account and nothing changes in either account she will still be slightly ahead in Marcus. You could argue that she could move money monthly from marcus to conventry but if they both hold their rates it would still be less than marcus returns. according to my calculations anyway. I have a spreadsheet that does the daily as well as the much simpler Marcus calculations.
Of course its a gamble to an extent that the rates in Marcus won't fall further but its similar for Coventry rates too. Many will argues against this but to get even close to the same true returned amount you have to time the Regsaver to the closest point that gets you the full 365/6 days rtn   

colsten

The Coventry account is 1.85% in real terms, not 0.99% or any other number. By the law of maths, 1.85% is more than 1.2%. Therefore, money you have in a 1.85% account will earn more interest than if you had the same money in a 1.2% account.

Did you use the calculator I recommended?

vermania

unwina said:

colsten said:

She is not earning slightly more in Marcus than in Coventry, as Marcus is 1.05% and Coventry 1.85%. Use the MSE RS calculator to work out the actual numbers in £££.

If you are new to regular savers. there might be some other, even better, options than the Coventry. 

Her Marcus is currently giving 1.20% until end of August whereas whilst Coventry looks like its more in real terms its equivalent is really only at best 0.99%. even at 1.05% if she leaves it in the Marcus account and nothing changes in either account she will still be slightly ahead in Marcus. You could argue that she could move money monthly from marcus to conventry but if they both hold their rates it would still be less than marcus returns. according to my calculations anyway. I have a spreadsheet that does the daily as well as the much simpler Marcus calculations.
Of course its a gamble to an extent that the rates in Marcus won't fall further but its similar for Coventry rates too. Many will argues against this but to get even close to the same true returned amount you have to time the Regsaver to the closest point that gets you the full 365/6 days rtn   

You also need to consider the time that the money, which is building up in the Coventry Regular Saver, is spending in Marcus prior to it transferring over. The comparable rate is more like 1.5%, rather than 0.9%.

unwina

colsten said:

The Coventry account is 1.85% in real terms, not 0.99% or any other number. By the law of maths, 1.85% is more than 1.2%. Therefore, money you have in a 1.85% account will earn more interest than if you had the same money in a 1.2% account.

Did you use the calculator I recommended?

Not quite, I now see what you are saying but I was only using the RegSaver part I'd not realised the two parts were acting together. I see what you mean now, sadly drip feeding from Marcus is not as easy as from most accounts as it does not allow sending money direct to the Coventry account using S/O and its feeder account does not have an interest value that is relevant. Whilst I get what you are saying and how that works I was in fact treating them as separate entities. I was treating them as two separate entities because I would have to manage this, that said I am actually already managing movements from a number of accounts into the day to day accounts where S/O are possible.
I will admit I thought I had this covered by the separate calculations and to be fair I am doing similar things with other regular savers so I will reconsider this approach and reconsider how to work out the crossover movements.
Thanks for helping me see the light I was already benefiting from but not entirely aware of the true gains. Thank you for pushing me to check again... I now have a simple tool rather than my own method. I'll still try to make it into a spreadsheet though for my own fun.

unwina

vermania said:

unwina said:

colsten said:

She is not earning slightly more in Marcus than in Coventry, as Marcus is 1.05% and Coventry 1.85%. Use the MSE RS calculator to work out the actual numbers in £££.

If you are new to regular savers. there might be some other, even better, options than the Coventry. 

Her Marcus is currently giving 1.20% until end of August whereas whilst Coventry looks like its more in real terms its equivalent is really only at best 0.99%. even at 1.05% if she leaves it in the Marcus account and nothing changes in either account she will still be slightly ahead in Marcus. You could argue that she could move money monthly from marcus to conventry but if they both hold their rates it would still be less than marcus returns. according to my calculations anyway. I have a spreadsheet that does the daily as well as the much simpler Marcus calculations.
Of course its a gamble to an extent that the rates in Marcus won't fall further but its similar for Coventry rates too. Many will argues against this but to get even close to the same true returned amount you have to time the Regsaver to the closest point that gets you the full 365/6 days rtn   

You also need to consider the time that the money, which is building up in the Coventry Regular Saver, is spending in Marcus prior to it transferring over. The comparable rate is more like 1.5%, rather than 0.9%.

I'm sure colsten will put me right here but I thought that the overall rate for the end point value would make that correct. Eg 72/6000 = 1.55% over the 12 months it lasts for assuming it lasts for 12 months I guess. Of course in my case there will be some days where the interest is not effective as I have pointed out that the feeder account does not have interest and the move from marcus is not always the same day depending on time of day etc. (To be fair the feeder account is just a basic day to day joint bank account. So now I understand the process it may be prudent to move the feeder if I can to more appropriate bank account. we do have enough of them!. (Halifax have done me a real favour by their wooly terms as I've learnt a new trick I thought I already understood!, thx guys)

lucazkoh

Can the regular saver be funded directly by bank transfer from a current account from let’s say HSBC? Or must it be by a standing order? If so, does it have to be from a Halifax account as I can’t find a way to set up a standing order from the everyday saver account that came with the regular saver?

colsten

It's actually £93/6000 = 1.55% but I think you got the right idea now. It would be a slightly lower return though, as your Marcus rate will shortly drop to 1.05%, so it's somewhere in between £89/6000 = 1.48% and 1.55% - say 1.5%, as vermania suggested .

In terms of feeders, you could consider TSB Plus (1.5% to £1,500) and/or Virgin (2% to £1,000) but as neither will pay interest on the full £6,000, you would still need a Marcus. Or better still, an RCI - which pays the same 1.05% as Marcus do but you can set up a kind of standing order there, so you can eliminate the hassle of monthly manual transfers. I say 'kind of', as you can't set an end date for this "SO", so you would need to diarise an action to manually stop the "SO" in a year's time, or whenever.

Lots of ways to slice this particular cake for more money than you can get from Marcus alone. If you feel adventurous, you can also consider the Quidco TSB Plus offer, which should eventually pay £50, provided you fulfill the terms (see separate thread about this offer). 

Lastly, I believe HSBC still do their 2.75% fixed rate RS, but you'd need to have a current account with them, and getting one of those can take half an eternity. First Direct and M&S also do 2.75% for their current account holders, but the former doesn't currently take applications, and the latter needs an account switch which I suspect you wouldn't want to do.