Marcus Rate Down to 0.40%

Malkytheheed

colsten said:

I am mightily pleased with myself that I never participated in the mad rush to Marcus, apart from sticking in £100 in case they could become useful to me at some stage. Instead, I stuck with Al Rayan, who were, and still are, paying rather significantly better than Marcus, and now also better than Skipton. Needless to say, their better rate is no longer available to new applicants (and may not last for much longer for existing savers) but they currently offer an instant access ISA with an expected profit rate of 0.60%. This might be a viable alternative for some people.

I have had Al Rayan accounts for years and always received the expected profit rate, even though it is not guaranteed. I stuck with them through the debacle with their new app & online banking (not as bad as TSB!!), and I am now happy that they have resolved their issues as the app is eminently usable.

I mean 0.4, 0.6. what is the difference? You are talking a few pounds a month. Big deal. The sensible thing for wealth generation is to hold as little cash as you can. So what is left whether you get 0.4 or 0.6 make next to no difference at all. On £10K it's £2 a month lol. Hardly worth switching or making a song and dance about. Focus on the big wins and don't sweat the little stuff.

Alistair31

Malkytheheed said:

colsten said:

I am mightily pleased with myself that I never participated in the mad rush to Marcus, apart from sticking in £100 in case they could become useful to me at some stage. Instead, I stuck with Al Rayan, who were, and still are, paying rather significantly better than Marcus, and now also better than Skipton. Needless to say, their better rate is no longer available to new applicants (and may not last for much longer for existing savers) but they currently offer an instant access ISA with an expected profit rate of 0.60%. This might be a viable alternative for some people.

I have had Al Rayan accounts for years and always received the expected profit rate, even though it is not guaranteed. I stuck with them through the debacle with their new app & online banking (not as bad as TSB!!), and I am now happy that they have resolved their issues as the app is eminently usable.

I mean 0.4, 0.6. what is the difference? You are talking a few pounds a month. Big deal. The sensible thing for wealth generation is to hold as little cash as you can. So what is left whether you get 0.4 or 0.6 make next to no difference at all. On £10K it's £2 a month lol. Hardly worth switching or making a song and dance about. Focus on the big wins and don't sweat the little stuff.

Have you logged in to the wrong forum? 

colsten

Malkytheheed said:

I mean 0.4, 0.6. what is the difference? 

0.6 is 50% added on to 0.4. But you knew that.

Malkytheheed said:

 Focus on the big wins and don't sweat the little stuff.

People who aren't able to work out the little stuff should probably not try and go after bigger opportunities.

Ballard

Malkytheheed said:

colsten said:

I am mightily pleased with myself that I never participated in the mad rush to Marcus, apart from sticking in £100 in case they could become useful to me at some stage. Instead, I stuck with Al Rayan, who were, and still are, paying rather significantly better than Marcus, and now also better than Skipton. Needless to say, their better rate is no longer available to new applicants (and may not last for much longer for existing savers) but they currently offer an instant access ISA with an expected profit rate of 0.60%. This might be a viable alternative for some people.

I have had Al Rayan accounts for years and always received the expected profit rate, even though it is not guaranteed. I stuck with them through the debacle with their new app & online banking (not as bad as TSB!!), and I am now happy that they have resolved their issues as the app is eminently usable.

I mean 0.4, 0.6. what is the difference? You are talking a few pounds a month. Big deal. The sensible thing for wealth generation is to hold as little cash as you can. So what is left whether you get 0.4 or 0.6 make next to no difference at all. On £10K it's £2 a month lol. Hardly worth switching or making a song and dance about. Focus on the big wins and don't sweat the little stuff.

People will have different priorities and that’s fine but I completely agree with you. In your example it’s £20 a year difference. Would I want to bother switching for that, particularly if it’s variable and could drop tomorrow? No I wouldn’t.

Yes it is ‘free money’ but it’s barely enough to buy a round these days. I found a fiver on the road a couple of days ago (first time I’ve seen a banknote let alone found one in yonks). It’d be mid June before your example made that kind of difference to my cash balance. 

colsten

Ballard said:

Yes it is ‘free money’ but it’s barely enough to buy a round these days.

Different people have different objectives. Not everyone is planning to use their interest to buy booze. Not everyone can ignore £20. 

Ballard

colsten said:

Ballard said:

Yes it is ‘free money’ but it’s barely enough to buy a round these days.

Different people have different objectives. Not everyone is planning to use their interest to buy booze. Not everyone can ignore £20. 

I did say in my post that people will view this differently but it's good that you repeated it in case I'd forgotten. Substitute Booze for 'garden fork', 'flowers', 'kettle' and it's more or less the same argument. Of course you're right that not everyone can afford to turn down £20 in a year and chasing this is technically the right thing to do but, and this is a generalisation, most people with £10,000 cash are likely to be on, or have previously been on, a decent wage and they may feel that spending half an hour or more sorting this out simply isn't a good use of their time when the limited returns are taken into consideration.

ratechaser

colsten said:

Ballard said:

Yes it is ‘free money’ but it’s barely enough to buy a round these days.

Different people have different objectives. Not everyone is planning to use their interest to buy booze. Not everyone can ignore £20. 

On that last point I'd agree that there are plenty of people for whom £20 a month is the difference between going hungry or not. The debate about extending the UC increase demonstrates that (ok, that's weekly, but the point holds).

However those people are unlikely to have the large sums sitting in savings to generate that amount of interest in the first place. A difference of £20 interest on a (let's be honest here) big lump of capital, is a pretty first world problem. 

The real problem here, I would suggest is why people feel the need to keep this much in cash at all. Emergency fund, yes. Couple of years buffer when retired, yes. But more than that indicates a misplaced sense of risk aversion - thinking that 'stocks and shares' are a bad thing, while ignoring the real risk of inflation.

Anyway, that's my piece said - as previously mentioned, I'm shifting significantly into investments from saving, and part of that investment will be on home improvements. Given I'm paying additional rate tax on whatever paltry interest I get on unwrapped cash, it would be nuts to have it sitting there depreciating in value...

veryintrigued

ratechaser said:

colsten said:

Ballard said:

Yes it is ‘free money’ but it’s barely enough to buy a round these days.

Different people have different objectives. Not everyone is planning to use their interest to buy booze. Not everyone can ignore £20. 

On that last point I'd agree that there are plenty of people for whom £20 a month is the difference between going hungry or not. The debate about extending the UC increase demonstrates that (ok, that's weekly, but the point holds).

However those people are unlikely to have the large sums sitting in savings to generate that amount of interest in the first place. A difference of £20 interest on a (let's be honest here) big lump of capital, is a pretty first world problem. 

The real problem here, I would suggest is why people feel the need to keep this much in cash at all. Emergency fund, yes. Couple of years buffer when retired, yes. But more than that indicates a misplaced sense of risk aversion - thinking that 'stocks and shares' are a bad thing, while ignoring the real risk of inflation.

Anyway, that's my piece said - as previously mentioned, I'm shifting significantly into investments from saving, and part of that investment will be on home improvements. Given I'm paying additional rate tax on whatever paltry interest I get on unwrapped cash, it would be nuts to have it sitting there depreciating in value...

Do forgive us for chasing accounts like this whilst we have held, reasonably sized, amounts for months whilst chasing our tails with house purchases.

Yet another example of a thread where people are determined to argue and which tangents onto people (thinking) they know others situations better than themselves.

Ballard

I won't quote your reply but we're talking £20 a year not a month in the example. I'd swap for £20 a month difference.
The broader point about holding cash is correct. I was until recently holding onto too much cash (around two years salary) but that was largely driven by the expectation of redundancy followed by redundancy and 8 months unemployment. Now that I'm comfortable in a role I've gone down to a six month cash holding, much of which will be used in house renovations in the coming year.

colsten

Final comment from me on this thread: For some people, £10K is their lifetime savings, to prop up a miserable state pension which might be the only income they have. It could also be the only savings a youngster has, say from an inheritance or a gift that they want/need to use towards their education. Or it could be all a jobless person who is sofa-surfing through the pandemic has. Or a single mum who just got out of an abusive relationship. Etc etc etc. So don't judge, and don't ridicule people who may not be as fortunate as you are.