Best savings accounts for pots

Eco_Miser

BooJewels said:

@Eco_Miser - Good morning, thanks for the lesson.  I am aware of the techniques you described (absolute addressing, dragging formula down etc) and do use them, but I was deliberately simplifying it in this instance for the OP.  If they try it and find it would be workable for them to manage virtual pots (and it simply might not be a suitable option for them), they can fine tune it going forwards as they learn more about using a spreadsheet and make it their own.  Sometimes it's easier to start from something and change it, than it is to try and start from a blank page.

@BooJewels Sorry, I intended to add a bit about you probably know this, but it will be useful for the OP and others; but the editor kept messing up my nicely formatted code block and by the time I'd got it fixed, I'd forgotten what else needed adding. Shouldn't have been up that late

I also notice that you deleted from the quote the bit where I did say it could be done more elegantly and automated more and that this was a bit of a blunt instrument.  It will get the job done, but won't gain any style marks.

I didn't mean to, just all the previous quotes.

refluxer

nl_cm_14 said:

I just googled it and it said that offer has expired?

Yes - Zopa launched that boosted pot offer at the end of October last year and I think they withdrew it sometime in November.

While a 'pot' system is ideal when you've got multiple savings goals, the few banks that allow you to do this don't always pay the highest rates unfortunately, so banking with them will be at the expense of getting the best possible return on your savings and many of the other banks that allow you to open multiple, identical accounts as an alternative probably won't allow you to open as many as 10.

Personally, I would just put the money in the place where it'll earn the most interest and keep a separate note of how the money is to be divided. This would ideally be on a speadsheet, but could equally be done on paper if needed and any interest earned could be divided up roughly between the pots to keep things simple.

If you're making modest, regular payments into these pots, Regular Savers might be an option although you'd need to open accounts with multiple banks and building societies as most only allow you to have one (plus you'd need to bear in mind any access requirements if you're likely to need the money within the 12 months that most of them run for). If you were to go to the trouble of doing this and stuck with the highest-paying RS accounts, you really would be getting the very best return for your savings.