High Interest Regular Savings Accounts

DoneWorking

Is it worth the hassle of keeping a few of these accounts 
Options are
Stick with approx 5% in easy access savers with max amount £85000
Or
Set up SO for easy access regular savers with circa 7% but max amount pa of about £3000

friolento

As 7% is higher than 5%, you get more interest if you make use of the Regular Savers, if only on some of your £85k. You can use the MSE Regular Savings calculator to model the effects of drip feeding from an easy access account.

There are now a fair number of Regular Savers paying more than 5%, although not all available any longer for new applicants. What you do depends a lot on the access you need, as some Regular Savers do not allow withdrawals or closure before maturity.

PRAISETHESUN

There's a good thread on regular savers, discussing the best options currently available: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6106986/regular-savings-accounts-the-best-currently-available-list/p1

7% is more than 5%, and on larger sums it definitely adds up - although the life admin required to manage them also does scale as well.

Nebulous2

They are different products with different purposes and value to people who use them. Easy access rates could drop off (or go up) anytime, with a regular saver you know what you are going to get for 12 months. 

badger09

Nebulous2 said:

They are different products with different purposes and value to people who use them. Easy access rates could drop off (or go up) anytime, with a regular saver you know what you are going to get for 12 months. 

Only if the Regular Saver is fixed rate. Not all are. 

DoneWorking

Thanks all
Very useful info 
A lot of effort over one year for fairly low extra interest 

trickydicky14

DoneWorking said:

Thanks all
Very useful info 
A lot of effort over one year for fairly low extra interest 

I would not say filling out a form and setting up a standing order is 'A lot of effort' but that's just me.

t1redmonkey

DoneWorking said:

Thanks all
Very useful info 
A lot of effort over one year for fairly low extra interest 

I wouldn't say it's much hassle personally.  I mean it takes me 30-60 seconds per month to do each payment into a regular saver.  Yes you're not going to get rich off them, but it all helps.

I would say they were more appealing 6-12 months ago though.  Most regular savers have stayed around the same sort of rate whilst easy access accounts have kept closing the gap.

Qyburn

trickydicky14 said:

I would not say filling out a form and setting up a standing order is 'A lot of effort' but that's just me.

True if you're funding from earnings. If you're recycling exusting savings, most savings accounts don't support standing orders so need manual intervention.

Bridlington1

I certainly think regular savers are worth it and as things stand I will be fully funding 23 of them next month. Personally I don't usually use SOs unless the terms of the account specify they must be used since I prefer not to keep money in a low/no interest current account overnight so 21 of those regular savers will be funded by manual transfer.

I'd say it is probably wise to avoid having all your savings held with one bank in case they suffer technical issues or you suffer a frozen account etc so for me one of the other advantages of multiple regular savers is that you end up with your EA savings spread across multiple different banks/building societies by default without suffering a lower interest rate. 

surreysaver

Bridlington1 said:

I certainly think regular savers are worth it and as things stand I will be fully funding 23 of them next month. Personally I don't usually use SOs unless the terms of the account specify they must be used since I prefer not to keep money in a low/no interest current account overnight so 21 of those regular savers will be funded by manual transfer.

I'd say it is probably wise to avoid having all your savings held with one bank in case they suffer technical issues or you suffer a frozen account etc so for me one of the other advantages of multiple regular savers is that you end up with your EA savings spread across multiple different banks/building societies by default without suffering a lower interest rate. 

Although I fund mine with standing orders from an account with an overdraft, so that solves the issue of keeping funds overnight not earning interest!