Being nosey... How many Regular Saver accounts do you have?

Kim_13

20122013 said:

Bridlington1 said:

Bobblehat said:

While King Bridlington1 was number bashing, I was also giving it a go too and came up with this using the King B's currently available page 1 listings 

Roughly agreeing with Kim_13's results ...


I didn't need to go into the "Local/loyal/beta/new customer only" category as I hit the £10,000 with the open to all section. It's interesting to see that you can throw £5,950pm at the currently available greater than 5.00% RS's, which will beat most current unlimited Easy Access accounts.

First of all I couldn't claim the title of King Bridlington1, so far as I'm concerned there's only one person who should be given the title of King in this country and that's Charles III.

Some further figures of note, if you were to take a look at the regular savers landscape as a whole, the last time I published one of my regular savers snapshots (9/9/25) the sum of the max monthly deposits of all regular savers available (at any rate) at the time was £42,250.

The sum of the accounts that were NLA at that time but that people could still hold was £33,225.

If you then include the fact that some of these listings were for ``any issue", e.g. for Leeds BS and Chorley BS are separate issues (but taken as a whole in the listing) you'd gain a further £13,450 of deposits if I'm not mistaken.

This gives a combined max total monthly pay in of £88,925, this figure does not include children's regular savers. Note it's impossible to hold all of these regular savers simultaneously, not least because you'd need to be aged both over 55 and under 26 at the same time.

@Bridlington1 @Bobblehat @Kim_13 @clairec666 et al

While I am still looking at all the RS listings to get the figures (even using the moneyfactscompare's list), you all have already worked out the totals. What did you so you got it done so much faster (than me), please? Interested to know as it will be most helpful.  

Only went down to 6% because going lower would take longer 😂 Grouping them into categories in my post was part of the working, so that I then just had to total those up.

Bobblehat

Kim_13 said:

20122013 said:

Bridlington1 said:

Bobblehat said:

While King Bridlington1 was number bashing, I was also giving it a go too and came up with this using the King B's currently available page 1 listings 

Roughly agreeing with Kim_13's results ...


I didn't need to go into the "Local/loyal/beta/new customer only" category as I hit the £10,000 with the open to all section. It's interesting to see that you can throw £5,950pm at the currently available greater than 5.00% RS's, which will beat most current unlimited Easy Access accounts.

First of all I couldn't claim the title of King Bridlington1, so far as I'm concerned there's only one person who should be given the title of King in this country and that's Charles III.

Some further figures of note, if you were to take a look at the regular savers landscape as a whole, the last time I published one of my regular savers snapshots (9/9/25) the sum of the max monthly deposits of all regular savers available (at any rate) at the time was £42,250.

The sum of the accounts that were NLA at that time but that people could still hold was £33,225.

If you then include the fact that some of these listings were for ``any issue", e.g. for Leeds BS and Chorley BS are separate issues (but taken as a whole in the listing) you'd gain a further £13,450 of deposits if I'm not mistaken.

This gives a combined max total monthly pay in of £88,925, this figure does not include children's regular savers. Note it's impossible to hold all of these regular savers simultaneously, not least because you'd need to be aged both over 55 and under 26 at the same time.

@Bridlington1 @Bobblehat @Kim_13 @clairec666 et al

While I am still looking at all the RS listings to get the figures (even using the moneyfactscompare's list), you all have already worked out the totals. What did you so you got it done so much faster (than me), please? Interested to know as it will be most helpful.  

Only went down to 6% because going lower would take longer 😂 Grouping them into categories in my post was part of the working, so that I then just had to total those up.

I ignored Moneyfacts and went straight to Bridlington1's page 1. I manually started at the top and typed in two columns for Interest and Max pm for each RS that met the criteria ... the rest was easy spreadsheet jiggery-pokery.

Bridlington1

20122013 said:

Bridlington1 said:

Bobblehat said:

While King Bridlington1 was number bashing, I was also giving it a go too and came up with this using the King B's currently available page 1 listings 

Roughly agreeing with Kim_13's results ...


I didn't need to go into the "Local/loyal/beta/new customer only" category as I hit the £10,000 with the open to all section. It's interesting to see that you can throw £5,950pm at the currently available greater than 5.00% RS's, which will beat most current unlimited Easy Access accounts.

First of all I couldn't claim the title of King Bridlington1, so far as I'm concerned there's only one person who should be given the title of King in this country and that's Charles III.

Some further figures of note, if you were to take a look at the regular savers landscape as a whole, the last time I published one of my regular savers snapshots (9/9/25) the sum of the max monthly deposits of all regular savers available (at any rate) at the time was £42,250.

The sum of the accounts that were NLA at that time but that people could still hold was £33,225.

If you then include the fact that some of these listings were for ``any issue", e.g. for Leeds BS and Chorley BS are separate issues (but taken as a whole in the listing) you'd gain a further £13,450 of deposits if I'm not mistaken.

This gives a combined max total monthly pay in of £88,925, this figure does not include children's regular savers. Note it's impossible to hold all of these regular savers simultaneously, not least because you'd need to be aged both over 55 and under 26 at the same time.

@Bridlington1 @Bobblehat @Kim_13 @clairec666 et al

While I am still looking at all the RS listings to get the figures (even using the moneyfactscompare's list), you all have already worked out the totals. What did you so you got it done so much faster (than me), please? Interested to know as it will be most helpful.  

For my final calculations I cheated and used excel, I took the figures from the most recent tab of the spreadsheet below (appears on p1 of the Archived regular savers thread (no chat) for future reference).

https://1drv.ms/x/c/ed08144cbc200a55/EaupzKC4EMZBvIROcFha9mEB5Vv0KnUAX4ciPhequsBdXQ

As for the listings on p1 of the main thread I used an assumed mean, which is either more convoluted or lazier than just summing them the normal way depending on your viewpoint.

I made a guess of the average maximum monthly pay in of the regular savers on the list then multiplied it by the total number of regular savers. I then just went through the list and added or subtracted the difference between the true max pay in and my guessed mean.

In this case there are 51 regular savers open to all. To count them quicker I used ctrl+F and searched for ``Special conditions:", this told me there were 76 items and includes recently NLA regular savers. I then searched for ``~~~~~~NLA" to give a total of 9 NLA regular savers and subtracted this to get 67 accounts that are currently available. All I manually counted was the 4 children's RSs and 12 local/loyal/beta/new customer ones and subtracted these numbers from 67 to get 51 open to all.

I then guessed that the mean max monthly pay in of the accounts would be £250 per account***. This gives a guess for the total pay ins of £250*51 = £12,750. 

I then just summed the difference between each max pay in and my guess and added it to the £12,750.

E.g. Principality 6 Month RS has a max pay in of £200, which is £50 less than my guess of £250 so this gives -£50
Zopa RS has a max pay in of £300, which is £50 more than my guess of £250 so this gives +£50.
Co-op has a max pay in of £250, which is exactly my guess so gives £0 and can be ignored.

In this case you'll see a lot of the adjustments cancel each other out as PBS's 6Mth RS and Zopa do so can be grouped together and also ignored.

This method brought me to the figures I came to.

*** A more accurate mean would've been £500 but I chose £250 because it meant a larger chunk of my adjustments were zero so could be skipped over. 

s71hj

Bobblehat said:

clairec666 said:

Bobblehat said:

While King Bridlington1 was number bashing, I was also giving it a go too and came up with this using the King B's currently available page 1 listings 

Roughly agreeing with Kim_13's results ...


I didn't need to go into the "Local/loyal/beta/new customer only" category as I hit the £10,000 with the open to all section. It's interesting to see that you can throw £5,950pm at the currently available greater than 5.00% RS's, which will beat most current unlimited Easy Access accounts.

Worth mentioning that a lot of people in the league table will have Monmouthshire's 7% account, so we've got an extra £1000 going in at 7%. Hence why some people's monthly totals may seem rather high.

And of course other NLA accounts.

Also worth mentioning that I stopped counting once I added that last one to reach £10,000, so there are quite a few more RS's equal to or less than the 4.5% figure available to extend the £10,000 even further 

Some will accidentally have got it twice and pretended they haven't noticed they are funding 2

luci

s71hj said:

luci said:

Can someone explain the attraction of RS’s? From my understanding, a 6.5% RS actually yields around 3.25% over the year. I’m clearly missing something obvious here, especially when I read that someone was funding theirs from an ISA account.

I practically lived on the MSE forums for years and kept myself well informed. Unfortunately, ill health has kept me away from the forums for the past few years, but I’m trying to get back into it.

Thanks.

You earn 6.50% for all the money that is with an institution for the whole time it is with them. So you will eg earn one twelfth of 6.5% on £250 if it is only in the account for a month. No institution will pay interest on money that isn't actually with them 

I understand that, that's why I used the average of 3.25%

luci

Kim_13 said:

They still pay the highest rates obtainable rates on the cash for the period that it is with them. Sure, a 6.5% Easy Access would return more over the year than a 6.5% Regular Saver, but there are none of the former available. Easy Access rates tend to be cut more quickly than Regular Savers, and require all of the money to be available upfront. £1,800 placed into a 3.25% Easy Access now would return roughly £58.50 in a year, while the 6.5% Regular Saver returns the same with the average balance over the year being only £900. 

Regular Savers with maturities spread over the year are therefore the best way to make sure that an Emergency Fund is available, without losing out to inflation since RS rates are more likely to beat it.

Thanks for that. I didn't think about the average balance being lower. I was just thinking about the full amount being deposited at the outset.

Eco_Miser

luci said:

s71hj said:

luci said:

Can someone explain the attraction of RS’s? From my understanding, a 6.5% RS actually yields around 3.25% over the year. I’m clearly missing something obvious here, especially when I read that someone was funding theirs from an ISA account.

I practically lived on the MSE forums for years and kept myself well informed. Unfortunately, ill health has kept me away from the forums for the past few years, but I’m trying to get back into it.

Thanks.

You earn 6.50% for all the money that is with an institution for the whole time it is with them. So you will eg earn one twelfth of 6.5% on £250 if it is only in the account for a month. No institution will pay interest on money that isn't actually with them 

I understand that, that's why I used the average of 3.25%

You're still not getting it, but please continue believing a regular saver gets only half the headline rate. The more people don't take up the best saving rates around, the more there is for the people who understand.

luci

Bobblehat said:

luci said:

Can someone explain the attraction of RS’s? From my understanding, a 6.5% RS actually yields around 3.25% over the year. I’m clearly missing something obvious here, especially when I read that someone was funding theirs from an ISA account.

I practically lived on the MSE forums for years and kept myself well informed. Unfortunately, ill health has kept me away from the forums for the past few years, but I’m trying to get back into it.

Thanks.

One of the best ways to explain it (pinched this from another forum member) is to think of your money sat in a typical 4% easy access account (ISA or non-ISA). In the next month it would earn a month's worth of interest at 4%. Instead, if you were to move some of that money e.g. £300 to a RS paying 6.5%, in the same month it would earn a months worth at 6.5% instead of 4%. Do this the next month and the second £300 would earn interest at 6.5% instead of 4%, and as a bonus, your 1st £300 you paid into the RS the month before is still earning interest at 6.5% too instead of 4%. Repeat for as long as the RS lets you. 

The net effect is that an RS with a higher interest rate will beat an easy access with a lower interest rate. The actual gain is roughly (very!) 1/2 the difference between the two rates. So 0.5 x (6.5% - 4%) = 1.25% ... gain over leaving  your money in the easy access. This works for as many months (or typically 1 year) as the RS lets you add money.

This page is a calculator that you can plug some of your own figures in to see what you would gain with different rates and monthly contributions. Use the drip feed option if needed.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/regular-savings-calculator/

Many thanks for the explanation and the link to the RS calculator which I had forgotten about. That seems to have answered my question.

luci

DRS1 said:

luci said:

Can someone explain the attraction of RS’s? From my understanding, a 6.5% RS actually yields around 3.25% over the year. I’m clearly missing something obvious here, especially when I read that someone was funding theirs from an ISA account.

I practically lived on the MSE forums for years and kept myself well informed. Unfortunately, ill health has kept me away from the forums for the past few years, but I’m trying to get back into it.

Thanks.

Who can explain why people get addicted to anything.  Clearly RSs can become addictive.  Sure signs you are an addict include opening accounts which

mature in 6 months time or

only allow you to save £50 per month or

require you to open a current account that you otherwise did not need or want.

I seem to have got myself on the list by admitting to having a very old RS paying 2.45% (I thought that would shock the RS regulars who wouldn't look at anything paying less than 6.5%).

I actually have another paying 5% which auto renews so survives only because I have done nothing about it.

But the worrying thing is that I have now opened a new RS at Manchester BSoc.

So in the spirit of Halloween you will see me Zombie walking up the table.

Monthly amount is £1200.

I asked what the attraction of RS was, not what the addiction was!     Maybe your addiction has fuddled your brain!  

(Posted in jest and not meant to offend.)

luci

Eco_Miser said:

luci said:

s71hj said:

luci said:

Can someone explain the attraction of RS’s? From my understanding, a 6.5% RS actually yields around 3.25% over the year. I’m clearly missing something obvious here, especially when I read that someone was funding theirs from an ISA account.

I practically lived on the MSE forums for years and kept myself well informed. Unfortunately, ill health has kept me away from the forums for the past few years, but I’m trying to get back into it.

Thanks.

You earn 6.50% for all the money that is with an institution for the whole time it is with them. So you will eg earn one twelfth of 6.5% on £250 if it is only in the account for a month. No institution will pay interest on money that isn't actually with them 

I understand that, that's why I used the average of 3.25%

You're still not getting it, but please continue believing a regular saver gets only half the headline rate. The more people don't take up the best saving rates around, the more there is for the people who understand.

I am getting it (slowly), but I haven't explained myself very well. It was my cackhanded way of saying that I understood you only get interest on the amount that is in the account at any one time and not the whole 12 monthly deposits for the whole year. (I've probably still not explained myself properly).

Bobblehat kindly posted a clear explanation which has been very helpful.