The Top Regular Savers Discussion Thread

BestSeagull

Mon BS. My initial transfer in, sent yesterday morning, appeared in the app at 9am today.

ForumUser7

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

Bobblehat

francoghezzi said:

Bridlington1 said:

francoghezzi said:

During the time you spent dealing with Monmouthshire BS and the "app" this week I managed to read a book to my child, I had a couple of great walks, cooked something Italian and enjoyed my life staying far, very far, from this mess. Not even a 10% interest rate could drag me into this 'Disneyland' style local bank, and a couple of others that seem so popular in this forum. 'Missing out' is, sometimes, a reassuring choice. Popcorn ready. 3, 2, 1 ... ready for the next 70 pages full of rants (and messages like 'I opened 2, 3, 5, 8 of them, should I fund all of them, no wait I have already 25 Principality, maybe I close them, but the App is down again...). Enjoy. Love and Peace.

In total I spent all of about 10 minutes on Monmouthshire BS over the last couple of days, this consisted of checking to see if the MBS app was back up a few times on Thursday, even then this was done on my phone whilst waiting for the kettle to boil so I wasn't using up any extra time there, as anyone who knows me would testify I do get through a lot of tea (regularly get through a gallon of the stuff during a single day at work alone).

I checked the app first thing yesterday morning so whilst I was checking the MBS app then I made some toast (ok perhaps not as exciting as Italian but then again pizza is essentially just glorified cheese on toast anyway). Again no extra time used there.

Checked a couple of times later in the morning, on the second attempt it let me in and I opened the account (only took about a minute to do). I haven't bothered funding it yet as I plan to wait till Friday.

Also updated the first page of this thread to include it, archived the Ts&Cs to the wayback machine and posted the details in the archived thread, though I do this with any accounts I add to p1 of this thread anyway so no extra time spent on my part there.

Don't ask me to agree on 'pizza is just a glorified cheese on toast'  but in days like these the 'no chat' thread is a Godsent. Keep up the good work

When people have banking problems, threads like this one are the godsend. Other kind people help you to solve your banking problems because they've been there before you and know what to do!

Bridlington1

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 

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.

I'd be inclined to cross that bridge when I come to it. The rate is variable so who knows what it'll pay in a year's time, the same goes for the regular saver landscape in general, so it could be that the rate falls and you end up withdrawing funds from it before maturity to fund other regular savers.

I tend to keep a chunk of less competitive (but still better than EA rate) regular savers open with the minimum balance speculatively so that I can top these up with any surplus funds that emerge, which act as a dripping tray in some ways. I've got enough regular savers at 5%+ to soak up just over £12k in September for example, £2550 of that capacity is regular savers at 5%-5.35% which aren't routinely funded but can absorb over £5k if I have accounts that mature at the turn of the month. These then get emptied in later months when I'm short of funds.

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 

scoobydoo8

francoghezzi said:

During the time you spent dealing with Monmouthshire BS and the "app" this week I managed to read a book to my child, I had a couple of great walks, cooked something Italian and enjoyed my life staying far, very far, from this mess. Not even a 10% interest rate could drag me into this 'Disneyland' style local bank, and a couple of others that seem so popular in this forum. 'Missing out' is, sometimes, a reassuring choice. Popcorn ready. 3, 2, 1 ... ready for the next 70 pages full of rants (and messages like 'I opened 2, 3, 5, 8 of them, should I fund all of them, no wait I have already 25 Principality, maybe I close them, but the App is down again...). Enjoy. Love and Peace.

During the time you spent writing that post, I've managed to open two monmonthshire regular savings accounts.

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.