The Top Regular Savers Discussion Thread

BestSeagull

ForumUser7 said:

Does anyone else’s Mon BS app just say ‘getting things ready’ indefinitely please? Trying to see if the deposits have arrived! Thanks

Mine is working well today. iOS. 

where_are_we

I funded my Mon App Exclusive RS @7% yesterday with £1000 and that is showing up on App today. I had to override COP but as long as you double check your sort code , account number and reference, then I have no problem with making a large payment. You start earning interest as soon as the £1000 goes in. I presume COP will work after a day or two. 
Funding is an issue. I will reduce contributions to my lower paying RS`s if necessary and even withdraw funds if they are easy access. For funding I have had to use up a large part of my flexible cash ISA which I intend to fully fund back up in March of next year. Being a 20% tax payer, 7% is equivalent to 5.6% if you have to pay tax on the interest. As my flexible cash ISA rate is much lower than 5.6% it makes sense to fund these high paying RS`s fully if possible.
Remember the 7% is variable, so put in the maximum now (if you are able) before any possible reduction.  

trickydicky14

clairec666 said:

jameseonline said:

Section62 said:

jameseonline said:

clairec666 said:

jameseonline said:
I don't fund regular saver accounts with a pathetic £1 & leave them alone, if I get a regular saver I fully fund EVERY month, then close if I need to free up funds.

Might be worth changing your stance about fully funding. If you can't put the full £1000 into the new Monmouthshire, it's still worth putting in, say, £200 per month. And at a higher rate than Nationwide for example.
I doubt I'll be able to put in £1000 most months, even with dropping lower rate accounts, so I'll start with £100 this month and only add more if it's not too much hassle.

I think you might have missed the fact I don't currently have funds to replace the Nationwide Regular that I'm currently closing early to fund others next month, Monmouthshire have now launched new accounts which has now shaken up the regular saver game on top of what I planned to do, I believe it's £500 per month for app version & £500 for branch version not £1000 per month for a single account?

We get the point you don't have the money to fully fund the accounts.

But you seem to be missing the point that you don't have to fully fund them.

There's nothing 'pathetic' about opening a high interest RS account and putting £1 in it, if it means you have one of those accounts opened and available for funding if circumstances change.  The best overall strategy is typically trying to fund those accounts paying the higher rates, even if only partially funded, rather than trying to full fund an account with a lower interest rate.

The £1000 pay-in for the new MonBS @7% means it would be better paying the £250 you would otherwise put in the VM RS into the MonBS account, even though you wouldn't (currently) be able to fully fund it each month.  Avoiding the MonBS account because you don't have £1000 this month would probably be an error.

Which accounts you open and how much you fund each one by is obviously up to you.  We're just trying to explain - in the spirit of MSE - that the strategy you've adopted isn't the one which is likely to get you the best overall return.  And even if you aren't interested, hopefully other people reading the thread won't go away from it in the mistaken belief that only opening accounts you can full fund is any kind of requirement.

Can people stop picking on me, Monmouthshire wasn't an option when I started talking about closing my nationwide account 

I wasn't intending to pick on you, just pointing out that turning down a 7% interest rate might not be wise!

This account is confusing me though - I'd got to the point where my regular savers were fairly nicely spread throughout the year, so when each one matures it provides most of the funds for that month's deposits. So my money is earning the best rates for the maximum time possible. This new account will skew that completely, as it will spew out £12400 on maturity (if fully funded) which is way beyond my usual monthly deposits. Currently messing around with a spreadsheet to work out the best strategy.

Nice problem to have though 

Descrabled

ISA vs taxable Regular Savers

Please consider that the amount of taxable interest may complicate the repayment of WFP for those of us pensioners who are bordering on £35k taxable income and this could affect the repayment of £100, £150, £200, or £300 depending on age and household status. 

TheWoodler

Monmouthshire’s app issues are really just an updated version of previous issues with postal opening and so forth. 

As a result they do dominate these pages every time they release a market-leading offer, because they don’t seem to have applied learnings from previous issues. 

I agree with @francoghezzi ’s assessment - I personally have had cause for a serious complaint with them that spiralled due to their initial handling so my impression is that this is part of the bigger picture alluded to above.

I understand things go wrong occasionally, and I’ve sometimes had cause for complaint elsewhere, but that was a particularly memorable example. My view is that if it causes you beyond a certain amount of hassle, then you’re working too hard to earn that money, as the process should be doing the work for you. 

I’m almost tempted to suggest that Monmouthshire RSs should have their own thread!  as the issues they invariably generate do tend to monopolise this thread for quite a while. 

Gers

My mystery second MBS RS which appeared yesterday is now showing as closed.  Did the wee cog thing and removed it from view.  MBS are catching up with their problems. 

Bobblehat

TheWoodler said:

.......

As a result they do dominate these pages every time they release a market-leading offer, because they don’t seem to applied learnings from previous issues. 
.............

Yes, but with the help of others on here, the issues are eventually solved and then the discussion moves on!

There is another "no chat" thread for RS's for anyone who doesn't find the discussion useful!

TheWoodler said:

I was making the point that Monmouthshire themselves don’t seem to learn. It’s a pattern quite apparent to me from previous RS issues.

No need to shout at me about discussions or point me to the no chat thread - I am, after all, contributing to the same discussion in a temperate fashion without shouting at anyone. 

Edit: Fixed that for you  ... I sometimes forget net etiquette!

Bridlington1

TheWoodler said:

Monmouthshire’s app issues are really just an updated version of previous issues with postal opening and so forth. 

As a result they do dominate these pages every time they release a market-leading offer, because they don’t seem to applied learnings from previous issues. 

I agree with @francoghezzi ’s assessment - I personally have had cause for a serious complaint with them that spiralled due to their initial handling so my impression is that this is part of the bigger picture alluded to above.

I understand things go wrong occasionally, and I’ve sometimes had cause for complaint elsewhere, but that was a particularly memorable example. My view is that if it causes you beyond a certain amount of hassle, then you’re working too hard to earn that money, as the process should be doing the work for you. 

I’m almost tempted to suggest that Monmouthshire RSs should have their own thread!  as the issues they invariably generate do tend to monopolise this thread for quite a while. 

I take a different approach, MBS are fine in my experience when the account's up and running, ok they don't have the most advanced systems (to put it mildly) but they get there in the end and they have improved in recent years. Now account opening is automatic via the app, gone are the days when you'd need to fill out an online form and then wait for several days for your account number to arrive by post, sign a form which had to be sent back by post and manually add accounts to online banking, and that itself was an improvement from having to apply for accounts by post.

Now it's a case of wait for the app to work, log in, open the account and the account shows in the app very quickly with your account number being sent by email. It's a far cry from when they launched a Christmas RS at 5.5% in 2022 when Royal Mail were on strike. I'm not saying they're perfect by any means, but they are slowly but surely getting better.

Moreover you don't have to spend that long on it. In my case once the app was back up and running I was able to open the account, and a welcome letter with account number arrived by email within minutes, I've not logged back into the app since, I'm just going to wait till later next week to send money to it, make another deposit on 1/9/25 and then keep funding. I'm not complaining, I've got a 7% regular saver out of them for very little effort, now I'm going to sit back and enjoy the long weekend, I'll probably spend tomorrow on the coast with a picknick.

Additionally I've no objections whatsoever to people wishing to discuss MBS in this thread, discussing regular saver applications is one of the functions of this thread, if someone wishes to create their own thread specifically for discussing MBS they can do that too, I've no issues with that either, but they can still use this thread if they want.

I acknowledge that some prefer to have a thread without the lengthy discussions about MBS's technical issues, which is why the Archived thread exists in its current form.

TheWoodler

I was making the point that Monmouthshire themselves don’t seem to learn. It’s a pattern quite apparent to me from previous RS issues.

No need to shout at me about discussions or point me to the no chat thread - I am, after all, contributing to the same discussion in a temperate fashion without shouting at anyone. 

s71hj

Bridlington1 said:

TheWoodler said:

Monmouthshire’s app issues are really just an updated version of previous issues with postal opening and so forth. 

As a result they do dominate these pages every time they release a market-leading offer, because they don’t seem to applied learnings from previous issues. 

I agree with @francoghezzi ’s assessment - I personally have had cause for a serious complaint with them that spiralled due to their initial handling so my impression is that this is part of the bigger picture alluded to above.

I understand things go wrong occasionally, and I’ve sometimes had cause for complaint elsewhere, but that was a particularly memorable example. My view is that if it causes you beyond a certain amount of hassle, then you’re working too hard to earn that money, as the process should be doing the work for you. 

I’m almost tempted to suggest that Monmouthshire RSs should have their own thread!  as the issues they invariably generate do tend to monopolise this thread for quite a while. 

I take a different approach, MBS are fine in my experience when the account's up and running, ok they don't have the most advanced systems (to put it mildly) but they get there in the end and they have improved in recent years. Now account opening is automatic via the app, gone are the days when you'd need to fill out an online form and then wait for several days for your account number to arrive by post, sign a form which had to be sent back by post and manually add accounts to online banking, and that itself was an improvement from having to apply for accounts by post.

Now it's a case of wait for the app to work, log in, open the account and the account shows in the app very quickly with your account number being sent by email. It's a far cry from when they launched a Christmas RS at 5.5% in 2022 when Royal Mail were on strike. I'm not saying they're perfect by any means, but they are slowly but surely getting better.

Moreover you don't have to spend that long on it. In my case once the app was back up and running I was able to open the account, and a welcome letter with account number arrived by email within minutes, I've not logged back into the app since, I'm just going to wait till later next week to send money to it, make another deposit on 1/9/25 and then keep funding. I'm not complaining, I've got a 7% regular saver out of them for very little effort, now I'm going to sit back and enjoy the long weekend, I'll probably spend tomorrow on the coast with a picknick.

Additionally I've no objections whatsoever to people wishing to discuss MBS in this thread, discussing regular saver applications is one of the functions of this thread, if someone wishes to create their own thread specifically for discussing MBS they can do that too, I've no issues with that either, but they can still use this thread if they want.

I acknowledge that some prefer to have a thread without the lengthy discussions about MBS's technical issues, which is why the Archived thread exists in its current form.

The coast. Would that happen to be the Bridlington One?