Premium Bond Winner ?

diystarter7

Wilbur11 said:

£150 for me and £125 for other half this month.  Both hold full 50k each 😊

Hi

We hold two full amouts.
Past year, 1.25% return, peanuts
This month

Me, 25, 50 ad 100. mrs Diy, 25, 25, 50 and 100 = 375

Sounds great but over te or so years we held the amount and max amounts for about 5 years, dreadful returns.

Thanks

Stargunner

Interest rates have been very low until recently, so your returns from premium bonds held years ago would be very low, as would have returns from savings.

jjmmww1

Up to £200 in bonds now no win for me this month 

(this is just my secret savings since i can't pull it out instantly I won't touch it)

ljayljay

onthebench said:

becky_rtw said:

onthebench said:

My wife and I each had the full amount in PBs and have gradually been withdrawing to pay for a house renovation. Took the last £6000 out of my wife’s account this month but waited until after the draw date. 

Glad we did as I checked the app this afternoon. 

Two prizes. 

Prize 1 of 2: £25. 

Prize 2 of 2: £5,000. 

Well done! Hopefully can pay for some more renovation stuff or new bits of furniture 😎

Thanks. The timing was amazing as we were actually sat in the kitchen looking at the last few unplastered walls and feeling sorry for ourselves as the project has dragged on for so long and taken us over budget, and we were wondering where we weee going to find the money to actually furnish it. 

That was when I checked the prize checker app!

Congratulations on your good fortune & great timing for a big win.

One thing that has always interested me & you may be able to answer is the notification timing of a large win.

As many will already be aware the large wins of £5K plus are published early to include winner location but also specifically the winning bond number. I have always therefore assumed that if I was lucky enough to win £5K or more, excluding a millionaire visit, I would be contacted either by phone or email in advance of the smaller wins being announced. Did you receive any earlier communication at all? If not, I will look forward to checking the app with greater anticipation in the future as I have always thought that without prior notification £1K would be the max I could win.

PS If there is no prior notification, I still won't be tempted to go through the published list in advance but will retain hope of a big big win right up until I check next.

BoxerfanUK

ME: full holding £50.00 SHE: full holding £0.00
  

Cell

£25 on £25,000.

£250 in a year, so 1% which is probably below average. I've never in all my years won a prize above £25. I wonder what the odds are for even £50?

TadleyBaggie

Cell said:

£25 on £25,000.

£250 in a year, so 1% which is probably below average. I've never in all my years won a prize above £25. I wonder what the odds are for even £50?

My wife and have had a few £50's and £100's in the year we have held (£80K between us). We got £1550 in a year, so very close to 2%.

diystarter7

BoxerfanUK said:

ME: full holding £50.00 SHE: full holding £0.00
  

Hi

Proof if there was ever the need for that is the fact that a few get the bigger prizes, many just below interest rates and at times even with max holdings you get zero.

Though we are not 40% tax payers atm, those with at least 50k to save and 40% or more in taxk, p bonds is good.

Thnaks

justwantedtosay

I went over my winnings from the start of 2022 comparing them not to the headline rate but to what I'd "expect" to win - for example with a full holding you can reasonable expect one £25 prize and one of either £50 or £100 so between £75 and £125 is neither good nor bad, just OK. I'm not allowing for any prize better than £100 as I don't really expect one, though I 'should' now get one once in any period of about 50 months.

Anyway, it was rather disappointing to find that 4 months were below the expected rate and all the rest were within the bounds of expectations, with not a single 'good' month, so I'm quite a bit behind. There was a string of draws when I 'should' have won 2 x £25 and did - so exactly matching what was expected. Even the standout month with five prizes didn't break the mould as they were all of £25 - it just used up all my 'luck' and I've had an APR of 0.6% since! Indeed, 3 of the 4 bad months have come since November, when rates have been better, with just 2 prizes other than the 5 in December.

Obviously I don't expect to win the 'right' amount every month but hope it will at least average out over the year. I do think I'm due some luck soon though.

eskbanker

justwantedtosay said:

Obviously I don't expect to win the 'right' amount every month but hope it will at least average out over the year.

In general, the longer you wait, the closer to the expected return you should get (from either direction) - a year should be better than a month or two, but multiple years will be a more realistic measure, as you'll see if you play about with different periods on the MSE PB calculator (when it's working).