The Top Regular Savers Discussion Thread

WillPS

Speculator said:

Going to start reducing my monthly payments to regular savers that are maturing soon. Maybe refresh Newcastle again. Need to redirect funds to our Monmouthshire 7% & 6% accounts. 

Going to start with the Market Harborough 6% maturing 30/11 

Similar situation - although I'm a little concerned that's going to screw up the carousel I've tried to line up where our saved funds mature throughout the year. I'm reassuring myself that there are easy access options we don't make maximal use of currently (notably Santander Edge) and a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

I suspect the 7% rate will only last as long as the base rate holds out as well, although how far the rate drops beyond the base rate's is anybody's guess.

CrunchyNutCornflakes

I'd registered for the Monmouthshire 6% monthly saver but not funded it. I've just registered for the 7% app exclusive saver, which I'll fully fund. Can I ignore the 6% saver and leave it unfunded?

WillPS

CrunchyNutCornflakes said:

I'd registered for the Monmouthshire 6% monthly saver but not funded it. I've just registered for the 7% app exclusive saver, which I'll fully fund. Can I ignore the 6% saver and leave it unfunded?

You need to put £1 in to ensure it isn't closed after 30 days.

clairec666

WillPS said:

CrunchyNutCornflakes said:

I'd registered for the Monmouthshire 6% monthly saver but not funded it. I've just registered for the 7% app exclusive saver, which I'll fully fund. Can I ignore the 6% saver and leave it unfunded?

You need to put £1 in to ensure it isn't closed after 30 days.

Doesn't necessarily mean that the 7% regular saver would be closed too, but it's worth putting the £1 in to avoid the risk.

jameseonline

CrunchyNutCornflakes said:

I'd registered for the Monmouthshire 6% monthly saver but not funded it. I've just registered for the 7% app exclusive saver, which I'll fully fund. Can I ignore the 6% saver and leave it unfunded?

Depends on the terms, worst case scenario is they close the 6% because you didn't fund it

pecunianonolet

Been reading now several pages with the same issues and problems and reports of success stories after opening the saver in question for the last 20 or so pages. No issues btw. for me opening one when the app was working.

My observations:

- People may have their reasons for not opening or opening and not funding regular savers
- Too much focus on a headline rates in general with in this case high funding allowance too
- Not much considerations on tax
- The impression that for a larger proportion of the demographic posting here tax implications are of less concern with full PSA available or even higher free allowances available e.g. starter rate considerations, only interest income, etc.

As a higher rate tax payer you only have a £500 PSA, however, you my not have the full £20k available in April to fill up your ISA. Now think about how few regular savers you need to cross the £500 PSA limit. Now assume that you keep current accounts at 0 and park some cash here and there e.g. 6% Santander or 5% Cahoot accounts until bills are due. 

As a 40% tax payer, now think about the current CMC ISA rate of 4.59%. That means that 4.59 x 1.66 = 7.6194%

Basically once you have reached your PSA a regular saver would need to pay 7.62% to break even with taxes. In that case, there is no incentive for somebody to open this very generous 7% regular saver with a even more £1000 monthly funding allowance. 

Or in other words, funding only this one reg saver would yield ca £450 interest (next tax year if not closed before and fully funded each month with 12 payments) so with a second reg saver you are already crossing next years PSA, assuming ISA rates stay stable. Of course lower ISA rates make regular savers more favourable.

There are very perfect reasons why people pass on regular savers and just make monthly contributions into their ISA instead, if they can't just put the full lump sum in at once.

You could expand further and say that making enough pension contributions would put you into a lower tax band to gain the full PSA again, we could talk Premium Bonds to park funds, etc. 

Of course, if you can max out your £20k ISA allowance in April, have enough income to fill up a pension and still have enough disposable income left after bills the picture looks different again because 60% after tax is still better than nothing or less elsewhere.

On the contrary, filling up a pension is extremly tax favourable but the money is unaccessible for a long time and reduces your disposable and accessible income in younger years. Think property deposit, high rents while you put money aside, think family, think ever increasing bills, inflation, student load repayments, etc. 

Just leaving this here to broaden the overall conversation with the focus on the many reasons why people decide that regular savers are without doubt amazing but why they not work for everyone or could even provide you with less returns if not all elements are managed well. 

masonic

I can't speak for others, but my priority has always been to fill my S&S ISA / S&S LISA ahead of any savings product. That's Tier 1 for me. This year I took out a cash ISA in response to the allowance being put under threat. This was in priority above everything else. Discussion about ISAs and investments is best had in other threads. When I don't mention them in this thread it is not because I am neglecting to consider them. I suspect many contributors to this thread also make full use of their ISA allowance in one way or another.

I salary sacrifice aggressively into my workplace pension. This is money I do not receive, so I don't have to waste bandwidth thinking about how to save it.

Below ISAs and pension, I have regular savers paying 6% or more. These are the only savings products I am actively funding, having already used my full ISA allowance.

I have some fixed term savings paying 5-6% that will be maturing over the next year and a half, and some easy access at 5%. These are savings I am running down to fund the ISAs and regular savers. Subject to having enough options available (and a £1000pcm option certainly helps with this), my target is to have almost all of my non-ISA savings in RS, with just a small margin in EA. I am not far off this goal.

Kim_13

jameseonline said:

CrunchyNutCornflakes said:

I'd registered for the Monmouthshire 6% monthly saver but not funded it. I've just registered for the 7% app exclusive saver, which I'll fully fund. Can I ignore the 6% saver and leave it unfunded?

Depends on the terms, worst case scenario is they close the 6% because you didn't fund it

Or that because the 6% opened before 20/08/25 was not funded and gets closed, they decide that you are not eligible for the 7% version and close that too. It's too early to say whether they will police the fact that people have been able to open the 7% without having another account with money in it.

I would agree with the advice to put £1 in, it also then gives you another £500 of RS capacity should you find yourself able to save more than you expect, with the ability to withdraw during the term if you need. 

clairec666

pecunianonolet said:

Been reading now several pages with the same issues and problems and reports of success stories after opening the saver in question for the last 20 or so pages. No issues btw. for me opening one when the app was working.

My observations:

- People may have their reasons for not opening or opening and not funding regular savers
- Too much focus on a headline rates in general with in this case high funding allowance too
- Not much considerations on tax
- The impression that for a larger proportion of the demographic posting here tax implications are of less concern with full PSA available or even higher free allowances available e.g. starter rate considerations, only interest income, etc.

As a higher rate tax payer you only have a £500 PSA, however, you my not have the full £20k available in April to fill up your ISA. Now think about how few regular savers you need to cross the £500 PSA limit. Now assume that you keep current accounts at 0 and park some cash here and there e.g. 6% Santander or 5% Cahoot accounts until bills are due. 

As a 40% tax payer, now think about the current CMC ISA rate of 4.59%. That means that 4.59 x 1.66 = 7.6194%

Basically once you have reached your PSA a regular saver would need to pay 7.62% to break even with taxes. In that case, there is no incentive for somebody to open this very generous 7% regular saver with a even more £1000 monthly funding allowance. 

Or in other words, funding only this one reg saver would yield ca £450 interest (next tax year if not closed before and fully funded each month with 12 payments) so with a second reg saver you are already crossing next years PSA, assuming ISA rates stay stable. Of course lower ISA rates make regular savers more favourable.

There are very perfect reasons why people pass on regular savers and just make monthly contributions into their ISA instead, if they can't just put the full lump sum in at once.

You could expand further and say that making enough pension contributions would put you into a lower tax band to gain the full PSA again, we could talk Premium Bonds to park funds, etc. 

Of course, if you can max out your £20k ISA allowance in April, have enough income to fill up a pension and still have enough disposable income left after bills the picture looks different again because 60% after tax is still better than nothing or less elsewhere.

On the contrary, filling up a pension is extremly tax favourable but the money is unaccessible for a long time and reduces your disposable and accessible income in younger years. Think property deposit, high rents while you put money aside, think family, think ever increasing bills, inflation, student load repayments, etc. 

Just leaving this here to broaden the overall conversation with the focus on the many reasons why people decide that regular savers are without doubt amazing but why they not work for everyone or could even provide you with less returns if not all elements are managed well. 

You say "not much considerations on tax" - I for one am taking tax into consideration, but don't talk about it much in this thread as a) it would bore people, and b) it's the regular saver discussion thread, so is focussed on regular savers. I'm making my own calculations about whether my money is better in a regular saver ISA every time, and I'm sure lots of others are too. There's plenty of discussion about tax on interest in other threads, so I'm happy to keep it out of this thread and keep it purely for... er... 20 pages of moans about the Monmouthshire app.

subjecttocontract

I think of myself as very fortunate. I'm retired, able to use all my ISA allowance every year and have built a considerable next egg. I have savings outside of ISAs and therefore still pay lots & lots of tax, but don't let that get in the way of decisions. When I can be bothered, I go for the best returns being offered. My only consideration with tax is to keep detailed records.