Comparing regular saver vs instant access like Marcus

colsten

refluxer said:

I've not had any regular savers before so this is useful discussion for me. I had also looked at similar figures to the OP's examples and wondered why anyone with a lump sum would bother with a regular saver, but had overlooked the fact that the money not yet drip-fed into the regular saver could also be earning interest from the originating account. That account would have to be a higher interest but accessible account though, which would rule out many current accounts.

I think you might be over-thinking things.

Shuffling money from an account with a lower interest into one with a higher one is almost always desirable. If the lower interest rate is 0% (as is the case with most current accounts now), then all the more reason to move the money into the higher rate account as fast as possible.

You'd almost never want to shuffle money from an account with a higher interest rate into one with a lower rate, other than for the purpose of sending it to a higher rate account, or to make a payment with it.

refluxer

colsten said:

refluxer said:

I've not had any regular savers before so this is useful discussion for me. I had also looked at similar figures to the OP's examples and wondered why anyone with a lump sum would bother with a regular saver, but had overlooked the fact that the money not yet drip-fed into the regular saver could also be earning interest from the originating account. That account would have to be a higher interest but accessible account though, which would rule out many current accounts.

I think you might be over-thinking things.

Shuffling money from an account with a lower interest into one with a higher one is almost always desirable. If the lower interest rate is 0% (as is the case with most current accounts now), then all the more reason to move the money into the higher rate account as fast as possible.

You'd almost never want to shuffle money from an account with a higher interest rate into one with a lower rate, other than for the purpose of sending it to a higher rate account, or to make a payment with it.

My bad. When I said 'higher interest but accessible account', I was meaning a savings account (such as the Marcus account the OP referred to) that pays higher interest than a typical current account and not one that is higher than the prospective regular saver account. I should have probably worded that better and that explains some of the previous responses to my post - sorry for the confusion folks !

dont_use_vistaprint

It is defeinetely not worth the effort right now, time spent opening an account, setting up standing order, dealing with mail and recycling, tracking it and figuiring out where to put the money a yaer later as CBS only allwo once conversion to a IA saver, all for a grand total of £34.36 a year later on £6,000 transfered in.  You could reduce distractions and focus that time much more constructively thinking how to make money

trickydicky14

It really isn't a big deal setting up RS, at the last count I had 17 on the go paying around 5k into them each month.
As stated above, most months a RS matures and that helps to fund the rest.
Pickings are slim every were but it's still a MSE thing to do 

colsten

You say

It is defeinetely not worth the effort right now, time spent opening an account, setting up standing order, dealing with mail and recycling, tracking it and figuiring out where to put the money a yaer later as CBS only allwo once conversion to a IA saver, all for a grand total of £34.36 a year later on £6,000 transfered in.  You could reduce distractions and focus that time much more constructively thinking how to make money

I say 

It is definitely worth the effort right now, opening a Regular Saver, setting up an SO, tracking the RS and figuring out where to put the money on maturity, all for a grand total of more than you will be able to get in any other savings account that you can open at this time. After all, it doesn't take much more than half an hour of your life in total.

If you can afford to be more risk-friendly, you might be able to make better returns from investments. You might also chose to mix savings and investments. You are definitely not a worse person for using Regular Savers. Quite the contrary - you are probably a rather smart person who is on top of their own finances

Eco_Miser

dont_use_vistaprint said:

  You could reduce distractions and focus that time much more constructively thinking how to make money

I'd rather spend half an hour arranging to make money passively for the next year than dreaming about getting rich quick - I've got the rest of the year for that.