Premium Bond Winner ?

fh2901

I had to reduce my FH to £40,000 a few months back. Still a fair investment, but I've had nothing since December! Not a sausage. Anyone else finding that? I can't believe reducing to 80% of FH should make that much difference, even with the rates having reduced.

njkmr

Reduced to 40k recently.

£50 this month.

Still thinking it may be better in stocks and shares ISA.

Dropped considerably now from the highs of 5.85% I was getting last year on FH.

SnowMan

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81913928#Comment_81913928

These are the odds of winning n prizes in a monthly draw on a £40,000 holding based on the 3.6% prize fund rate over that period

Someone looking at a losing streak will always start with a non winning month which is presumably January in your case. So we have to ask ourselves what is the chance of winning nothing in February and March and that is about 2.6% (= 0.162 x 0.162) or about one person in 38. But then there are lots of ways to have a bad run e.g. only winning smaller amounts over a period that we select because it produces the worst outcome, or only 2 prizes in 6 months etc and so you are only going to notice the losing pattern that you've had, so you can't just work out the odds of your particular losing streak.

In that context what has happened isn't improbable. While you will have periods of bad luck and good luck your recent bad luck doesn't look abnormal in any way.

From April there is an increased 17.6% chance of winning nothing in a month on £40,000 because of the prize fund rate reduction. But it's still likely you will be back winning from April.

fh2901

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81914001#Comment_81914001

So it's not insignificant for any one month, that's interesting. For three consecutive months though, the probability has to be pretty low! I worked it out around the 2.5% mark. At least that goes down to a vanishingly small probability for 4 consecutive months, so maybe I'll get something next month. The last 6 months or so though I've only had 2 months winning something. even though I actually had FH until mid-December. Never mind!

SnowMan

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81914054#Comment_81914054

If you had 40K in premium bonds throughout your adult life and the prize fund remained as for the March draw then by my calculations you would expect to wait on average about 23 years until you 'achieved' 3 consecutive losing months (albeit there would be a lot of variation around that figure). So not going to happen very often but will probably happen at least once in your lifetime.

You'd expect to wait about 144 years for 4 consecutive blank months.

Once you've had 3 consecutive blanks there is of course a 16.2% chance of not winning in the following month (edit or 17.6% in the real life scenario of the prize fund changing)

fh2901

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81914123#Comment_81914123

Yes, that's true - and something I have spent many occasions explaining to others over the years! Although technically it won't in April; it'll be slightly higher! Either way, anything would be nice, since I lost my job at the end of Feb, so am currently in the middle of considering my next steps…

SnowMan

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81914167#Comment_81914167

Hopefully you will both find another job soon, if that's what you're after, and win big on the premium bonds next month 😃

fh2901

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81913984#Comment_81913984

Yes, I also have a S&S ISA, and returns on that are significantly higher. Though as they say, next month could always be the month; my IFA says to treat it as (almost) instant access emergency fund savings. And yes @SnowMan, I'm taking a bit of a career pivot, so a little windfall would be lovely to go towards my retraining funds - thank you!