Best options for 18 year old child trust fund money. Possibly Barclays rainy day saver?

Beki88

Between the governments CTF scheme and my own personal saving, my son has almost £5k which is now available to him after turning 18. He does plan on saving the majority of it but knows there are things he will be buying, including driving lessons regularly etc so we are thinking an easy access might be best even though locking away would give better rates. We saw that Barclays offer 5% or there abouts with their saver and thought that would be a decent option, although he doesn't have any DD set up. Are there any he could set up such as paypal and plum savings, would they count? Are there any better options? Thanks in advance for your advice

refluxer

The Barclays Rainy Day Saver is definitely the best option for easy access to a £5k lump sum at the moment.

It sounds like he already has a Barclays current account ? As you've presumably already sussed, he'd need at least £800/month paid into it and two Direct Debits coming out every month to cover the £5/month Blue Rewards fee.  

I have most of my bills paid from mine so can't advise on whether Paypal or Plum would be suitable but, if you scroll back a few pages on this forum, I'm pretty sure there was a fairly big thread dedicated to the Rainy Day Saver in which qualifying DDs were discussed.

Beki88

refluxer said:

It sounds like he already has a Barclays current account ? As you've presumably already sussed, he'd need at least £800/month paid into it and two Direct Debits coming out every month to cover the £5/month Blue Rewards fee.  

No Barclays account at present. He had a santander 123 mini in trust, Halifax which he uses as his main account - opened as a kids account with card, and a HSBC account which was for the kids saver. Being 18 now rates have dropped for the santander and HSBC accounts. We can transfer in/out the 800 needed. Will have a look for the thread you mentioned see what we can figure out. Thank you. 

refluxer

I would have thought that any two payments that are collected by Direct Debit from the Barclays current account every month should be fine. You need to get this right though, as the £5/month Blue Rewards fee that results if you don't would obviously reduce the effective interest rate.

Do PayPal and Plum Savings collect payments each month specifically via Direct Debit ? I don't use either so can't advise, I'm afraid.

If you can't find any suitable, dedicated Rainy Day Saver threads (the forum search tool isn't the best) then you could have a look through the Top Easy Access Savings Discussion thread (from page 756 onwards), where it will have also been discussed.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/596724/the-top-easy-access-savings-discussion-area/p756