barclays regular saver.

kanchhelskis

dear people. i was going to make the first payment to barclays on the 23rd of june, then change it to the 1st of every month after, does this sound good?

thanks in advance.

Milarky

Whilst doing this is allowed, it is only a good idea if you time the opening of the account to the 23rd (or 22nd) also. If you opened the account today (say) the best thing you can do is make an immediate deposit (and not wait till 23rd) and have all subsequent payments at the start of each month.

The trick of getting maximum interest is to open the account as late in the month as possible - so that the next month's payment is as short a time as possible from the opening date

genny

What do you think of this account in general, I've not had a regular saver before, because I find the idea a bit of a pain, moving money around. It this really a "good" account, or am I better off with a new high interest instant access such as Kaupthing?

Milarky

genny wrote: »

What do you think of this account in general, I've not had a regular saver before, because I find the idea a bit of a pain, moving money around. It this really a "good" account, or am I better off with a new high interest instant access such as Kaupthing?

'In general' it's a regular savings account. Its good points (apart from the high rate of interest - which is fixed) are:

- you can vary or stop payments altogether and still qualify for the higher rate for the times when you don't make withdrawals
- you can also make withdrawals and still qualify for a higher rate (by careful timing)


Basically, it is complicated compared to 'clean' savings accounts allowing instant access. For those reasons you may wish to avoid it.

Regular savings accounts of this type (eg very high rate for 12 months) can be most useful to two kinds of savers, as I see it

- those with only income (not a lump sum) to save - who happen to bank with Barclays anyway
- those with lump sums who are prepared to be organised, move lots of relatively small amounts of money around frequently and will read the terms and conditions (i.e people who are naturally curious and always thinking how to squeeze a bit more out of their cash)

both categories are quite well represented on these discussion forums...

KTF

Milarky wrote: »

The trick of getting maximum interest is to open the account as late in the month as possible - so that the next month's payment is as short a time as possible from the opening date

Is that still the best approach to take for this account or would you get more interest if you opened (and paid in) on the 1st with a payment going out on the 1st every month after that.

I can understand the opening it as late as possible approach when it came to the Lloyds 2 year one as you could deposit more money in the first month so got more interest on a larger amount from the start but would that still apply with the Barclays one?

kanchhelskis

i have set up the standing order to start from tomorrow, then the 1st of every month.thanks for the comments guys.

Milarky

KTF wrote: »

I can understand the opening it as late as possible approach when it came to the Lloyds 2 year one as you could deposit more money in the first month so got more interest on a larger amount from the start but would that still apply with the Barclays one?

Yes - and to any account with a fixed term - fixed number amount of payments, but discretion over timing of all payments... Many regular savers don't allow you to play with the dates... It can also get you confused doing so.. And sometimes there's little in it any. I estimated in another post than the most (reaslistically) you gain compared to all payments on the 'day' of opening (eg '20th') is only about £3.50 gross. Most people wouldn't bother for that sum..

~Chameleon~

I've just come from Barclays now, having just opened this account, and the PB told me this account will only accept in 12 fixed payments so changing SO date won't get you any extra money into the account like it did with LTSB.

ETA: Sorry, I misread what was being asked (that'll teach me to skim read!) so what I said above doesn't apply