Premium Bond Winner ?

Flobberchops

2x£25 on a holding of just over £7000, which is a nice surprise. Sadly it comes at the precise moment that due to necessity I'm drawing down my PBs - lucky I waited until after the draw, I suppose!

arwain

Won £1100, four £25 prizes and one £1000 prize, that's the most I have ever won with them. I once won £500 many many years ago when the payouts were much higher than they are today. I have the max holding but have been thinking of taking the money out and look for better returns.

MeenaM

current holding £5 for the past 53 years and not won a penny !

melbury

MeenaM wrote: »

current holding £5 for the past 53 years and not won a penny !

Does make you wonder if the really old bonds from the 1950's do ever win.

Mine certainly haven't:(

redpete

melbury wrote: »

Does make you wonder if the really old bonds from the 1950's do ever win.

Mine certainly haven't:(

It shouldn't make you wonder that. Not an exact calculation but I reckon the chances of winning a prize (yes, a single prize) from £5 invested in premium bonds for 53 years is maybe 1 in 8.

So if 8 people have owned £5 worth for 53 years, 7 of them (on average) would not have won anything.

You'd have to own those £5 of premium bonds for 410 years to have a better than even chance of winning anything.

strawb_shortcake

Stupid question, but my maths is really poor. How do I keep track of return on my max holding with premium bonds? We now have the maximum and I won £25 this month. I want to track it over a year to see if it's worth continuing with. We may use the money to pay off the mortgage in 3 years time, with interest rates being so low there didn't seem much value in locking it in to a 2-3 year account. I just really want to understand if from a percentage basis.

Thank you

polymaff

annabanana82 wrote: »

Stupid question, but my maths is really poor. How do I keep track of return on my max holding with premium bonds? We now have the maximum and I won £25 this month. I want to track it over a year to see if it's worth continuing with. We may use the money to pay off the mortgage in 3 years time, with interest rates being so low there didn't seem much value in locking it in to a 2-3 year account. I just really want to understand if from a percentage basis.

Thank you

If you've got n months of winnings, multiply the winnings by 24 and then divide that by n thousand.

For instance, if you won a total of £600 over 12 months, 600 times 24 is 14,400, 14,400 divided by 12,000 is 1.20.

If you won that in 8 months, then the 14,400 divided by 8,000 is 1.80.

MeenaM

redpete wrote: »

It shouldn't make you wonder that. Not an exact calculation but I reckon the chances of winning a prize (yes, a single prize) from £5 invested in premium bonds for 53 years is maybe 1 in 8.

So if 8 people have owned £5 worth for 53 years, 7 of them (on average) would not have won anything.

You'd have to own those £5 of premium bonds for 410 years to have a better than even chance of winning anything.

Good grief! :eek:

redpete

annabanana82 wrote: »

Stupid question, but my maths is really poor. How do I keep track of return on my max holding with premium bonds? We now have the maximum and I won £25 this month. I want to track it over a year to see if it's worth continuing with. We may use the money to pay off the mortgage in 3 years time, with interest rates being so low there didn't seem much value in locking it in to a 2-3 year account. I just really want to understand if from a percentage basis.

No-one can tell you what you will win if you leave the full amount in for the next 3 years, it might be nothing, it might be millions, or something in between.

If you keep a record of your winnings in a spreadsheet it's pretty easy to work out the percentage return after the 3 years - but obviously that's too late to affect your decision today.

Put the numbers into the PB calculator on MSE here and it will tell you the chances of winning different amounts. £50000 over 3 years is highly likely to win at least £1500 (1% annual return). You've got a 1 in 10 chance of winning at least £2500 (1.7% annual return).

Personally I'd want the guaranteed return on the £50k from the best savings account or, if I can risk some of the capital, higher returns with more risk.

eskbanker

annabanana82 wrote: »

How do I keep track of return on my max holding with premium bonds? We now have the maximum and I won £25 this month. I want to track it over a year to see if it's worth continuing with. We may use the money to pay off the mortgage in 3 years time

You seem to be using 'I' and 'we' interchangeably - do you have a £50K holding as an individual or £100K as a couple?

annabanana82 wrote: »

with interest rates being so low there didn't seem much value in locking it in to a 2-3 year account. I just really want to understand if from a percentage basis.

Typical annual returns on PBs with average luck, from a maximum holding over several years, are likely to be in 1.25% territory.

You can get over 2% with 3-year fixed-term savings accounts, although your tax situation may affect the comparison - are you basic or higher rate taxpayers and do you have other savings that generate interest that uses up some or all of your personal savings allowance?

redpete wrote: »

No-one can tell you what you will win if you leave the full amount in for the next 3 years, it might be nothing, it might be millions, or something in between.

My money would be on the last of those