The Top Regular Savers Discussion Thread

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?

gt94sss2

dgpur said:

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?

cahoot is a division of Santander UK.

Similar to the relationship First Direct have with HSBC.

flaneurs_lobster

gt94sss2 said:

dgpur said:

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?

cahoot is a division of Santander UK.

Indeed, some of its roots as the old Abbey National bank still lurk if you dig deep enough.

CricketLady

Good morning!

I have the two Lloyds regular savers - the 6.25% matures on the day of the base rate decision this week, the 5.25% matures in December.  It says there is the option to renew but when I click this on either account it says "this is the account you are choosing to renew" but then doesn't give me any new button to press, it only says "if you don't want to renew, you can take a look at our other easy access accounts (I think one is about 1.65%).  

Can anyone tell me how I proceed please?  Thanks so much!

moi

CricketLady said:

Good morning!

I have the two Lloyds regular savers - the 6.25% matures on the day of the base rate decision this week, the 5.25% matures in December.  It says there is the option to renew but when I click this on either account it says "this is the account you are choosing to renew" but then doesn't give me any new button to press, it only says "if you don't want to renew, you can take a look at our other easy access accounts (I think one is about 1.65%).  

Can anyone tell me how I proceed please?  Thanks so much!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81256481#Comment_81256481

The helpful information is shown when you click "show previous quotes." 

I also screenshotted it below. I bookmarked my reply as a reminder, but I don't know how to link directly to masonic's helpful post from the "show previous quotes" bit.😳

Bridlington1

moi said:

CricketLady said:

Good morning!

I have the two Lloyds regular savers - the 6.25% matures on the day of the base rate decision this week, the 5.25% matures in December.  It says there is the option to renew but when I click this on either account it says "this is the account you are choosing to renew" but then doesn't give me any new button to press, it only says "if you don't want to renew, you can take a look at our other easy access accounts (I think one is about 1.65%).  

Can anyone tell me how I proceed please?  Thanks so much!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81256481#Comment_81256481

The helpful information is shown when you click "show previous quotes." 

I also screenshotted it below. I bookmarked my reply as a reminder, but I don't know how to link directly to masonic's helpful post from the "show previous quotes" bit.😳

If you want a link that'll show all the previous quotes you can use this link below as a workaround:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/post/quote/81256481/Comment_81256481

The structure of this link is to take the link you had to your post and replace the discussion/comment with post/quote and change the # to another /

Just be aware it doesn't show it in the context of the thread, it shows anything that was on the one comment only.

ColdIron

moi said:

I also screenshotted it below. I bookmarked my reply as a reminder, but I don't know how to link directly to masonic's helpful post from the "show previous quotes" bit.😳

In a browser - if you hover over the Date and Time below the poster's name e.g. 26 January at 8:55PM, you can right click then copy a link to the post to your clipboard

allegro120

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 do remember you were refreshing Coventry, I thought it was a good idea but I didn't want to risk. My Zopa is ok too, 3rd of the month. I treat Santander as a mini EA, I transfer monthly interest from my two Edges there and recently started topping it up to £200p/m, it's the only 5% RS I'm currently funding.

Your spreadsheet sounds very similar to mine.  For "have/haven't been funded" I use 3 thin columns "allowance/deposit/confirmation of arrival" - good for tracking partial deposits.  Also have a column showing min-max for the accounts I may have to vary my monthly deposits, that helps to avoid checking with a very lengthy accounts spreadsheet. I keep all RSs with alternative deposit days at the bottom of the list and diarise deposits to these RSs.  My RS distribution spreadsheet also includes a section for current accounts that needs feeding (Club Lloyds, RBS/Natwest, Halifax etc.) and debit card payments for rewards, this helps with managing the process.