seriously need help i think :P

AntoVXR

Hi All,

i've got £12,000 sat in my Halifax Current account,

January: 48p Interest
February: 48p Interest
March: 54p Interest

its the ONLY account i have, what should i do to make more money, i'm a "financial n00b" :P


Thanks
anto

The_Fiddler_2

If you can afford to fix, Halifax has (or had, I haven't check the rates today) some good fixed rate web saver accounts. Even the normal web saver would be better than nothing until you make up your mind - if you have online banking its easy to apply for them.

The_Fiddler_2

Just checked the website, 6 month still appears to be 6.5% which is not a bad rate.

marshall2k

Look at the saving article that Martin has written (orange tab at top of page) and see what appeals to you.

I've recently opened a Kaupthing Edge account that pays 6.5% AER and will earn you approx 100 times more interest a month than your current account.

[edit] Oh! I forgot to say about an ISA! Open an ISA first (maximum of £3,600 in cash per year) and then its tax free until you withdraw

KiKi

Hi there - yes, you absolutely need to move your money. Halifax are probably laughing themselves stupid!

I'm assuming that as a financial 'newbie' you're looking to save at the moment, not invest any money. So:

1 - Pay off any debts.

2 - Open a cash ISA and put in £3600 which is the limit you can save in any financial year (April 6th 08-April 5th 09). Barclays Tax-Haven ISA is the top paying one at the moment at 6.5%. Leave the money there (although you can withdraw it if needs be), and it will earn you interest that you don't have to pay any tax on.

Next financial year you can either add another £3600 or move it to a higher paying account one that appears and add to that instead.

3 - Put the rest into a high interest savings account like Kaupthing Edge, or even a high street bank. Anything over 6% is excellent, but many may drop their interest rates slightly over the next month.

4 - You might want to consider tying up some of your money, if appropriate, in a fixed rate high interest savings bond. Ie, you save £3000 in a fixed rate bond for 3 years which has a guaranteed interest rate of 6.5% or something. Obviously only useful if you don't want access to your cash, as it's tied up.

5 - Do you have a mortgage that allows overpayments or an offset facility? It would reduce your mortgage payments or the term of your mortgage if you offset or overpay.


Hope that's helpful for you. Martin's article on how to save is excellent.

KiKi

redcar_2

Ask halifax to open you a websaver with card account (not the one that limits withdrawals) and a high interest current account asap and shift 2,500 into current account and rest into websaver whilst you think about what to do. They should be able to do this within the day for you.

Aegis

EDIT: A post that sparked this reaction has been removed from the thread for breaking forum rules regarding investment advice.

Do NOT immediately follow any investment advice you receive here (i.e. moving your money into commodities or equities). Unfortunately some people have become fixated on their belief in the "next big thing" and are talking about it as though it's a sure thing. It isn't. Nothing in investments is certain to retain its capital value.

For the moment you're better off sticking to savings because there's less risk to your capital. There is some risk of inflation, but given that RPI and CPI are both below 5% at the moment, it's clearly not as bad as some people would like you to believe (there have been a lot of examples lately of people cherry-picking their data to make it look as if all products are increasing massively, while your inflation is of course an average of only the products you personally buy). You can still get a few 6.5% interest accounts at the moment, though these might reduce soon. If you're ok tying up some money for a while, you can fix at close to 7% still, but only for 6months to a year.

Setting up a Halifax saver will give you instant access to your money, but their savings rates are pretty poor.

p.s. I accidentally thanked someone in this thread. It was while I was trying to report the post for very bad speculation advice that I would strongly recommend you stay clear of. Gold is a very high risk investment, and concentration of your holdings like that only magnifies the total risk to you.

jem16

Aegis wrote: »

p.s. I accidentally thanked someone in this thread. It was while I was trying to report the post for very bad speculation advice that I would strongly recommend you stay clear of. Gold is a very high risk investment, and concentration of your holdings like that only magnifies the total risk to you.

So glad you added this.

I thought you had taken leave of your normally very good senses when I saw that you had thanked trust's post.

Aegis

jem16 wrote: »

So glad you added this.

I thought you had taken leave of your normally very good senses when I saw that you had thanked trust's post.

Luckily the situation has been changed so that I don't even have to explain it away any more!

SpinnerB

I changed my two halifax current accounts too their High interest ones and keep them both at £2500, your interest will go up 10 fold ... you have to go into branch to change it and they will try hard to sell you the ultimate account and more ... just stick to your guns and ask to change your current account to the high interst current account.

chesky369

The problem with coming to this thread today is that Aegis' first post no longer makes much sense - sorry, not being rude but as the offending post seems to have gone, you don't realise what Aegis is talking about until further on down the line, since the previous six posts or so beforehand seem to be pretty sensible.