Time to Face The Music

RelievedSheff

EssexHebridean said:

RelievedSheff said:

EssexHebridean said:

Masses of little ones out and about with parents when I drove back to home last night - we don't decorate at all though so don't get them knocking which is fine by me - pretty sure they all get more than enough just going to people they know anyway! 

Great work on the payments/savings RS - that £200 a month you're directing to savings would be a great amount for a regular saver account - a lot have that as their deposit limit per month now. 

I think we are just going to build up a decent buffer for any unannounced emergencies in the account that we have and then once that has built up a little find a savings account with a better interest rate for the regular £200. I like the idea of having instant access to an amount of money to cover the unexpected first.

But equally I want the money to earn its keep while it is sat there in the banks coffers. And the current interest on the savings account is really poor. In fact it is so poor the money would be better off sat in our current account!!

For instant access at a reasonable rate, Santander have one year fixed term easy access e-savers at 2%, Nationwide have something around the same (duration and rate) and there is also Marcus at 2.5% (this includes a constantly renewable 0.25% bonus at the moment)  - we've been reasonably impressed with them, and the rates are definitely increasing as the BoE rate goes up. The money also gets sent by faster payment when you request it back to your nominated account so it really is easy access too - our EF lives in there as like you, we want to know we can get it quickly if needed. definitely no point in leaving it sitting in an account with a poor rate while it builds up though - you may as well have it working for you a little! 

Thank you.

I think I will wait until the BOE have announced the next rate rise tomorrow and let the banks sort their rates out again before I make any decision on opening a new savings account.

milann

It was definitely a cooler night last night. I was decidedly shivery when I went on one of my  loo trips in the night.

RelievedSheff

It was definitely cooler when we took the dog for a walk early this morning. Although it didn't seem to bother the dog he was just charging around like an idiot as usual.

beanielou

Looking good.

RelievedSheff

Another no spends day today. Two in a row makes it number 2 for November.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are from stores. Breakfast was the last of the soar dough bread toasted, we have both taken our packed lunches to work and dinner tonight is hunters chicken with chips and vegetables.

Tonight's jobs are:

• walking the dog
• cleaning the bathrooms
• load of washing (hung in the spare bathroom to dry)

It was a wet and windy night last night. The winds were hitting the side of the house where our bedroom is and making a right racket. We did finally fall asleep but it was a disturbed start to the night.

milann

The winds and rain have been pretty awful here too. Lovely sunshine now though. 

EssexHebridean

We had what pretty much appeared to be a monsoon last night for 15 minutes or so - absolutely torrential rain and quite strong gusty winds,. entertaining to watch from inside but I wouldn't have fancied being out in it!  It's still grey and grim looking at work in London now although thankfully the rain that had continued through the night did stop in time for me to cycle from the car. 

RelievedSheff

So I have now set up a Regular E Saver with the Red bank who we bank with anyway so our £200 per month savings will go into that account now. The only slight downside is that we can only have £2400 max in there at the end of the 12 months otherwise they will change it back to the account we already have which has a pitiful 0.2% interest rate and we can only pay in a max of £200 per month.

So I need to keep an eye on that side of it.

EssexHebridean

I just set up the regular payment on mine with an end date after the 12th payment RS - mind you any subsequent payments would have been after the year term anyway so it would already have reverted by that point. As a general rule Regular Saver accounts are definitely ones to diarise to Ditch & Switch though - we've got three each with various providers on the go at the moment, two finishing in January, the other not until a little later next year. I have all ours on automated payments at the beginning of the month. 

joedenise

RelievedSheff said:

So I have now set up a Regular E Saver with the Red bank who we bank with anyway so our £200 per month savings will go into that account now. The only slight downside is that we can only have £2400 max in there at the end of the 12 months otherwise they will change it back to the account we already have which has a pitiful 0.2% interest rate and we can only pay in a max of £200 per month.

So I need to keep an eye on that side of it.

They also have an E-saver account which you can have up to £250,000 in with interest rate of 2% annual or 1.98% monthly.  I've opted for the monthly interest as doubt the money will be in there for the full year as it's planned to be towards spending money for our holidays which happen several times a year!