Regular Savings Accounts Article Discussion

chamelion

just noticed firstdirect has a 5% regular saver account. better than the 4.5% or so posted on this website? any reason that's not listed or is that info here just out of date?

anna42hmr

chamelion wrote: »

just noticed firstdirect has a 5% regular saver account. better than the 4.5% or so posted on this website? any reason that's not listed or is that info here just out of date?

it is still 5% however to get it you need to have their First account current account, which charges £10.00 a month (unless you pay in £1500 every month) and the standing order or payment in to the reg saver has to be from the first account http://www.firstdirect.co.uk/savings/regular-saver-overview.shtml

chamelion

anna42hmr wrote: »

it is still 5% however to get it you need to have their First account current account, which charges £10.00 a month (unless you pay in £1500 every month) and the standing order or payment in to the reg saver has to be from the first account http://www.firstdirect.co.uk/savings/regular-saver-overview.shtml

FD is already my primary checking account

Brod_Boy

The drip feeding regular savings calculator is excellent, but can I please suggest one slight error. It seems to assume that the money is transfered without any loss of interest. As most people would set up a schem like this using electronic fund transfer, using the BACS system, then every month there would be a least 3 days where the money is "lost" in the ether. As some months would include week-ends, I have calculated that about 45 days could be lost and not gaining any interest. Assuming I am correct in my logic, could the calculator take this into account?

RayWolfe

No, the loss would be three days. You can't add up all the lost days in the year and take that off the total!

Paul_Herring

The 'lost interest' is worth 3 days worth on the amount of a single month's contribution over the entire year, not 3x12 days worth on the total contributed.

On 250/month on a (say) 4% account the former gives a correct 8p 'lost', where the latter gives an incorrect £11.83 (both before tax.)

Brod_Boy

Thanks for the 2 replies. I still believe the lost interest is more than assumed. My calculation was based on getting the £250 into Barclays 4.25% monthly saving on the 8th of each month for 1 year. That was how I arrived that some months the 3 days for the BACS transferr would be over the week-end, hence 5 days and not 3 days. I now realise that I could just set it up so that the money arrived say on the 1st friday of each month and therefore only loose 3 days each month. My £3000 is sitting in my EGG saving a/c geting 3.25%. I therefore still believe that each month on transfer of £250 from Egg to Barclays I will lost £250 x 3.25% for 3 days i.e. 6.67p. Over the 12 months this amount to 6.67p x 12 equals 80p. According to the MSE calculator my extra interest by drip feeding is £13, but I maintain it is really £12.20. This is still worthwhile, but the lost days do need to be taken into account.
I would be interested in any comments.

hardpressed

I've just transfer the last monthly payment into my Barclay's monthly savings account, i can 't remember what happens when the year is up, do they automatically put it into another account paying less interest?

apt

Yes it does, but it is instant access so you can move it to somewhere better. If you want to start a new Barclay's monthly saver for this year you need to apply for it.

anamenottaken

hardpressed wrote: »

I've just transfer the last monthly payment into my Barclay's monthly savings account, i can 't remember what happens when the year is up, do they automatically put it into another account paying less interest?

On maturity the funds stay in the same account but the interest rate changes (down, of course).