The Old Regular Savers Discussion Thread 28/12/24-29/1/26

s71hj

s71hj said:

Quick question, which I hope will be accepted as being relevant to this thread. It's about feeder accounts for regular savers, and I'm wondering how people manage that side of the whole undertaking. I have about 10000 go out to regular savers at the start of the month, 1st unless a weekend and maybe 4000 spread throughout the rest of a month. This is all by standing order from Santander current account. I'm conscious that the money, therefore, sits in that for a fair proportion of the month awaiting the start of the month earning 2.5%, generally growing to the required amount by maturing savings accounts of various kinds and salary. I'm beginning to wonder if all the advantage I gain from the regular saver boosted rates is lost by the amount of time money sits there waiting for the 1st. However, I don't have the bandwidth in my life for constantly daily monitoring and manual transfers. I think ideally, I need some sort of robo thing to move money from a higher paying saving account to current account as and when I need!!!!. Any ideas or tips about how others coordinate their affairs cost/time effectively on this front much appreciated!

Incidentally,  having recently interacted with another ?thread/board? On the MSE forum I wanted to comment on how friendly, helpful, tolerant of different level of knowledge this particular one is. It feels like everyone wants to share their knowledge and be helpful rather than scoff if someone asks what is perceived by others as a "silly question".

s71hj

s71hj said:

s71hj said:

Quick question, which I hope will be accepted as being relevant to this thread. It's about feeder accounts for regular savers, and I'm wondering how people manage that side of the whole undertaking. I have about 10000 go out to regular savers at the start of the month, 1st unless a weekend and maybe 4000 spread throughout the rest of a month. This is all by standing order from Santander current account. I'm conscious that the money, therefore, sits in that for a fair proportion of the month awaiting the start of the month earning 2.5%, generally growing to the required amount by maturing savings accounts of various kinds and salary. I'm beginning to wonder if all the advantage I gain from the regular saver boosted rates is lost by the amount of time money sits there waiting for the 1st. However, I don't have the bandwidth in my life for constantly daily monitoring and manual transfers. I think ideally, I need some sort of robo thing to move money from a higher paying saving account to current account as and when I need!!!!. Any ideas or tips about how others coordinate their affairs cost/time effectively on this front much appreciated!

Incidentally,  having recently interacted with another ?thread/board? On the MSE forum I wanted to comment on how friendly, helpful, tolerant of different level of knowledge this particular one is. It feels like everyone wants to share their knowledge and be helpful rather than scoff if someone asks what is perceived by others as a "silly question".

And special thanks I think to Bridlington1 who leads by example on this. Anyway much appreciated everyone's replies and I will amend my personal systems on the light of them!

WindfallWendy

Ooo, love this conversation!!! Though it reminds me that I still haven't been able to open a NatWest current account so am not benefiting from their RegSav. Gr.

I will however look into Chase. I hadn't thought about using an easy access saver to hold the cash before moving it into RegSav accounts.

My situation is that my husband holds the savings in an interest paying current account (Kroo) and has a SO passing into my own Kroo which then sends money to different current accounts and RS, usually within the first week of the month.

I do it this way so he doesn't earn more than £1000/year on interest, but that the funds still benefit from that tax free allowance. All the RS accounts are in my name and any taxable interest is mine to deal with. He can't be bothered playing the RS game and to be honest I think the funds I have are probably at their limit anyway (approx £25-30k circulating across 10-12 RS accounts). 

I hadn't thoughts of using an easy access saver to hold the funds in-between RS deposits. What a good idea!!
I love this thread!

clairec666

WindfallWendy said:

 He can't be bothered playing the RS game and to be honest I think the funds I have are probably at their limit anyway (approx £25-30k circulating across 10-12 RS accounts). 

"Can't be bothered playing the RS game"? What kind of fool is he 

s71hj said:
Incidentally,  having recently interacted with another ?thread/board? On the MSE forum I wanted to comment on how friendly, helpful, tolerant of different level of knowledge this particular one is. It feels like everyone wants to share their knowledge and be helpful rather than scoff if someone asks what is perceived by others as a "silly question".

Don't set foot near the UKPersonalFinance subreddit. Lots of scoffing on there!

allegro120

s71hj said:

Quick question, which I hope will be accepted as being relevant to this thread. It's about feeder accounts for regular savers, and I'm wondering how people manage that side of the whole undertaking. I have about 10000 go out to regular savers at the start of the month, 1st unless a weekend and maybe 4000 spread throughout the rest of a month. This is all by standing order from Santander current account. I'm conscious that the money, therefore, sits in that for a fair proportion of the month awaiting the start of the month earning 2.5%, generally growing to the required amount by maturing savings accounts of various kinds and salary. I'm beginning to wonder if all the advantage I gain from the regular saver boosted rates is lost by the amount of time money sits there waiting for the 1st. However, I don't have the bandwidth in my life for constantly daily monitoring and manual transfers. I think ideally, I need some sort of robo thing to move money from a higher paying saving account to current account as and when I need!!!!. Any ideas or tips about how others coordinate their affairs cost/time effectively on this front much appreciated!

I use standing orders for FD and HSBC, all other RSs I feed manually.  The main disadvantage of SOs is that they don't come out at weekends, the other is inconvenience of an extra layer of maintenance.  I have about 50 RSs and a few feeding accounts, these are constantly changing and I don't fund regularly some of my lower paying RSs,  so for me using SOs across the board would create a logistical nightmare.  

With the exception of Zopa, FD, HSBC, Coventry LSS and Santander I fund my regular savers on the 1st of the month and when if comes to 1st falling on weekend I fund some of them on the next working day.  I use spreadsheet.  All RS's in alphabetical order, with all basic info (account or ref number, %, allowance), those that don't credit at weekends are colour-coded and columns for recording what I deposited and confirmation of arrival.  I also have a column telling me what feeder accounts have payee set up for each RS.  This makes my RS distribution easy to manage.   

Prior to the 1st of the month I make sure that my best paying instant access account have enough funds for RS distribution.  I also prepare a schedule for transactions to ease the workload for distribution day/s.  Sometimes I schedule deposits when my feeder accounts already have enough funds for these transactions.

This works well for me, but it all depends on personal circumstances and preferences. 





     

Bridlington1

allegro120 said:

s71hj said:

Quick question, which I hope will be accepted as being relevant to this thread. It's about feeder accounts for regular savers, and I'm wondering how people manage that side of the whole undertaking. I have about 10000 go out to regular savers at the start of the month, 1st unless a weekend and maybe 4000 spread throughout the rest of a month. This is all by standing order from Santander current account. I'm conscious that the money, therefore, sits in that for a fair proportion of the month awaiting the start of the month earning 2.5%, generally growing to the required amount by maturing savings accounts of various kinds and salary. I'm beginning to wonder if all the advantage I gain from the regular saver boosted rates is lost by the amount of time money sits there waiting for the 1st. However, I don't have the bandwidth in my life for constantly daily monitoring and manual transfers. I think ideally, I need some sort of robo thing to move money from a higher paying saving account to current account as and when I need!!!!. Any ideas or tips about how others coordinate their affairs cost/time effectively on this front much appreciated!

With the exception of Zopa, FD, HSBC, Coventry LSS and Santander I fund my regular savers on the 1st of the month and when if comes to 1st falling on weekend I fund some of them on the next working day.  I use spreadsheet.  All RS's in alphabetical order, with all basic info (account or ref number, %, allowance), those that don't credit at weekends are colour-coded and columns for recording what I deposited and confirmation of arrival.  I also have a column telling me what feeder accounts have payee set up for each RS.  This makes my RS distribution easy to manage.        

I'm in a similar position though when I opened my Coventry LSS I didn't fund it initially so ``refreshed" the account on New Year's Day so that the account month became identical to a calendar month. Zopa isn't too bad in my case as I opened it on 2nd of the month so is only one day out, Santander is too low for me to fund at present but again my most recent one got opened on 1st so that its funding would marry up with calendar months.

Like yourself I use a spreadsheet, though I set mine up a tad differently to yours, my regular savers get sorted by interest rate (highest to lowest), a column which states when I can fund the regular saver (1st for first day of the month regardless of which day of the week it is, 1st WD for first working day, etc).

Colour coding gets reserved for which accounts have/haven't been funded, so green for has been fully funded, orange for keeping but not funding fully, red for closing/maturing this month, white for shall fund but haven't done so yet.

s71hj

Bridlington1 said:

allegro120 said:

s71hj said:

Quick question, which I hope will be accepted as being relevant to this thread. It's about feeder accounts for regular savers, and I'm wondering how people manage that side of the whole undertaking. I have about 10000 go out to regular savers at the start of the month, 1st unless a weekend and maybe 4000 spread throughout the rest of a month. This is all by standing order from Santander current account. I'm conscious that the money, therefore, sits in that for a fair proportion of the month awaiting the start of the month earning 2.5%, generally growing to the required amount by maturing savings accounts of various kinds and salary. I'm beginning to wonder if all the advantage I gain from the regular saver boosted rates is lost by the amount of time money sits there waiting for the 1st. However, I don't have the bandwidth in my life for constantly daily monitoring and manual transfers. I think ideally, I need some sort of robo thing to move money from a higher paying saving account to current account as and when I need!!!!. Any ideas or tips about how others coordinate their affairs cost/time effectively on this front much appreciated!

With the exception of Zopa, FD, HSBC, Coventry LSS and Santander I fund my regular savers on the 1st of the month and when if comes to 1st falling on weekend I fund some of them on the next working day.  I use spreadsheet.  All RS's in alphabetical order, with all basic info (account or ref number, %, allowance), those that don't credit at weekends are colour-coded and columns for recording what I deposited and confirmation of arrival.  I also have a column telling me what feeder accounts have payee set up for each RS.  This makes my RS distribution easy to manage.        

I'm in a similar position though when I opened my Coventry LSS I didn't fund it initially so ``refreshed" the account on New Year's Day so that the account month became identical to a calendar month. Zopa isn't too bad in my case as I opened it on 2nd of the month so is only one day out, Santander is too low for me to fund at present but again my most recent one got opened on 1st so that its funding would marry up with calendar months.

Like yourself I use a spreadsheet, though I set mine up a tad differently to yours, my regular savers get sorted by interest rate (highest to lowest), a column which states when I can fund the regular saver (1st for first day of the month regardless of which day of the week it is, 1st WD for first working day, etc).

Colour coding gets reserved for which accounts have/haven't been funded, so green for has been fully funded, orange for keeping but not funding fully, red for closing/maturing this month, white for shall fund but haven't done so yet.

I must do a basic "excel spreadsheet for dummies" course ASAP!!!!

mon3ysav3r

s71hj said:
I must do a basic "excel spreadsheet for dummies" course ASAP!!!!

I use LibreOffice Calc, it is free and works on Windows, Mac and Linux and is perfectly fine for maintaining such spreadsheets, thought I should mention it as this is a Money Saving forum and Excel/Office/365 can be pricey!

Bridlington1

mon3ysav3r said:

s71hj said:
I must do a basic "excel spreadsheet for dummies" course ASAP!!!!

I use LibreOffice Calc, it is free and works on Windows, Mac and Linux and is perfectly fine for maintaining such spreadsheets, thought I should mention it as this is a Money Saving forum and Excel/Office/365 can be pricey!

It's also worth noting you can use Excel for free using a OneDrive. I use open office for my regular savers but for the lists you see posted on the archived threads I use Excel on a OneDrive. I've found there tends to be some difference in functionality between the two.

s71hj said:

Bridlington1 said:

allegro120 said:

s71hj said:

Quick question, which I hope will be accepted as being relevant to this thread. It's about feeder accounts for regular savers, and I'm wondering how people manage that side of the whole undertaking. I have about 10000 go out to regular savers at the start of the month, 1st unless a weekend and maybe 4000 spread throughout the rest of a month. This is all by standing order from Santander current account. I'm conscious that the money, therefore, sits in that for a fair proportion of the month awaiting the start of the month earning 2.5%, generally growing to the required amount by maturing savings accounts of various kinds and salary. I'm beginning to wonder if all the advantage I gain from the regular saver boosted rates is lost by the amount of time money sits there waiting for the 1st. However, I don't have the bandwidth in my life for constantly daily monitoring and manual transfers. I think ideally, I need some sort of robo thing to move money from a higher paying saving account to current account as and when I need!!!!. Any ideas or tips about how others coordinate their affairs cost/time effectively on this front much appreciated!

With the exception of Zopa, FD, HSBC, Coventry LSS and Santander I fund my regular savers on the 1st of the month and when if comes to 1st falling on weekend I fund some of them on the next working day.  I use spreadsheet.  All RS's in alphabetical order, with all basic info (account or ref number, %, allowance), those that don't credit at weekends are colour-coded and columns for recording what I deposited and confirmation of arrival.  I also have a column telling me what feeder accounts have payee set up for each RS.  This makes my RS distribution easy to manage.        

I'm in a similar position though when I opened my Coventry LSS I didn't fund it initially so ``refreshed" the account on New Year's Day so that the account month became identical to a calendar month. Zopa isn't too bad in my case as I opened it on 2nd of the month so is only one day out, Santander is too low for me to fund at present but again my most recent one got opened on 1st so that its funding would marry up with calendar months.

Like yourself I use a spreadsheet, though I set mine up a tad differently to yours, my regular savers get sorted by interest rate (highest to lowest), a column which states when I can fund the regular saver (1st for first day of the month regardless of which day of the week it is, 1st WD for first working day, etc).

Colour coding gets reserved for which accounts have/haven't been funded, so green for has been fully funded, orange for keeping but not funding fully, red for closing/maturing this month, white for shall fund but haven't done so yet.

I must do a basic "excel spreadsheet for dummies" course ASAP!!!!

As for learning Excel, I've found just generally playing around with it and using the likes of w3schools etc if you get stuck is a good approach. You don't have to go too fancy but try listing your accounts and treating excel like you would a calculator as a start and then building it up gradually from there.

dgpur

Bridlington1 said:

chris_the_bee said:

where_are_we said:

I keep virtually nothing in my current account and it has a small overdraft facility. Set up alerts on your Santander current account so that when money goes into your CA you move it that day to your easy access savings account, keeking a small balance in your CA. Like you I have numerous SO`s going to RS`s. On the days that SO`s go out I get a warning text that I need to top up my CA. I then top up in the morning from my EASA to cover that days SO`s.

It`s up to you to decide whether it`s worth a few minutes of your time some mornings each month and it`s easier now that you can use the app on your mobile whilst downing your porridge!

Santander
I think Santander will be stopping account alerts shortly.

Indeed. I got this email from them in February:

Dear Bridlington1

 

We’ll stop sending you some account alerts soon

 

 Cahoot are doing the same. Are they owned by Sandanter, or use the same software?