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Savings advice
LOOBAH
Posts: 7 Forumite
Hi everybody.
I am wondering if anyone out there can offer some advice to me. Basically I am wanting to save for a deposit for a house with my boyfriend, and I am looking for ways to get the most interest out of my savings.
I am about to inherit £10,000 from my Grandma, so I plan to use the first £1,200 of this for a Help to Buy ISA with Halifax (2.5% AER).
That leaves me with £8,800 to put into any number of accounts I can think of. I am unsure whether to put everything into a Santander 123 account (I live at home with parents so I wouldn't be paying any direct debits through it), or whether to split the amount into chunks and pay it into higher interest accounts such as the TSB Classic Plus 5% AER on £2,000 (I understand you need a TSB bank account for this), or the Club Lloyds account which pays 4% AER on balances between £4,000 and £5,000 (direct debits are needed tho - would a charity direct debit work?).
What are everyone's thoughts on this?
On top of these 'chunk' savings from my inheritance, I am also planning on setting up a regular saver with First Direct who I bank with, of £300 a month; then £200 a month going to the Help to Buy ISA (my boyfriend can't have one as he has already owed a house).
I am budgeting to save a total of £1,300 a month, so taking off the £300 and £200 leaves £800. Does anyone have any recommendations for where I should save this remaining amount? I have a savings account with Skipton Building Society but this only gives 1.05% (something like that as it was recently reduced), so I could use this for the remaining £800 a month, unless there are better savings accounts which I could open.
Alternatively I could put the full £8,800 into a Santander 123 and plow the £1,100 a month (keeping £200 back for the HTB ISA) and reach the £20,000 limit and then open a regular saver, but this would still leave me with money spare and me not sure where to put it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am quite good with juggling money about, so meeting minimum pay in criteria isn't a massive issue for me. My credit rating is rated 2/5 by Noddle, (despite always paying back credit cards and loans on time... It was recommended by Noddle to shut any accounts I wasn't using in order to improve my rating. I did this and my rating plummeted to 2/5 from a 4, and I have been struggling to get it back up ever since!); so I don't really want to be applying for any fancy accounts as I fear rejection
But yeah, sorry for the long post! Thank you in advance!
Lou
I am wondering if anyone out there can offer some advice to me. Basically I am wanting to save for a deposit for a house with my boyfriend, and I am looking for ways to get the most interest out of my savings.
I am about to inherit £10,000 from my Grandma, so I plan to use the first £1,200 of this for a Help to Buy ISA with Halifax (2.5% AER).
That leaves me with £8,800 to put into any number of accounts I can think of. I am unsure whether to put everything into a Santander 123 account (I live at home with parents so I wouldn't be paying any direct debits through it), or whether to split the amount into chunks and pay it into higher interest accounts such as the TSB Classic Plus 5% AER on £2,000 (I understand you need a TSB bank account for this), or the Club Lloyds account which pays 4% AER on balances between £4,000 and £5,000 (direct debits are needed tho - would a charity direct debit work?).
What are everyone's thoughts on this?
On top of these 'chunk' savings from my inheritance, I am also planning on setting up a regular saver with First Direct who I bank with, of £300 a month; then £200 a month going to the Help to Buy ISA (my boyfriend can't have one as he has already owed a house).
I am budgeting to save a total of £1,300 a month, so taking off the £300 and £200 leaves £800. Does anyone have any recommendations for where I should save this remaining amount? I have a savings account with Skipton Building Society but this only gives 1.05% (something like that as it was recently reduced), so I could use this for the remaining £800 a month, unless there are better savings accounts which I could open.
Alternatively I could put the full £8,800 into a Santander 123 and plow the £1,100 a month (keeping £200 back for the HTB ISA) and reach the £20,000 limit and then open a regular saver, but this would still leave me with money spare and me not sure where to put it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am quite good with juggling money about, so meeting minimum pay in criteria isn't a massive issue for me. My credit rating is rated 2/5 by Noddle, (despite always paying back credit cards and loans on time... It was recommended by Noddle to shut any accounts I wasn't using in order to improve my rating. I did this and my rating plummeted to 2/5 from a 4, and I have been struggling to get it back up ever since!); so I don't really want to be applying for any fancy accounts as I fear rejection
But yeah, sorry for the long post! Thank you in advance!
Lou
0
Comments
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First thing is ignore the noddle score, and that of any other credit agency, it doesn't mean anything much.
Otherwise you ad thinking along the right lines, read through the 5% savings loophole, and associated thread and that should have most of your answers.
Come back after you've come up with your plan and others can critique it and confirm whether it looks right.0 -
Yeah I've read before that they are a load of rubbish, but it's still disheartening when I have been good with my money - but it's not the end of the world like you say
I will have a read of those, and see what I can come up with - thanks!0 -
1x TSB £2000 earn 5%
1x Nationwide £2500 Earn 5%
2x Tesco £6000 Earn 3%
When you have more money start with 6% RS, all the above accounts don’t need DDs.
What happens if you push this button?0 -
as bigadaj said, read the 5% saving loophole thread.
Set up the 5%, 4% and 3% accounts and then set up the regular saver accounts for 6%, 5%, 4% - if the regular savers add up to more than your monthly saving ability move money from the 3% accounts.
Don't forget to include the reward type accounts - Halifax and Coop will give you £5 or £4 per month without tying up any real level of funds.
You WILL find that you need to meet the requirements of the accounts so read the T&Cs carefully. All the minimum deposit requirements can easily be met by moving the same cash through the accounts - either in a circle or by bouncing back and forth between pairs (my preference)
You will also need a pile of direct debits to be able to get all the accounts (some require none, some require two and one reward type account requires 4) there are various ways to achieve these and a careful read should get you to the right place.
With 10K to start off I would not recommend Santander (even though my OH and I have three between us) You can get the 10K into higher paying accounts or into Tesco's 3% paying account and not need to pay any monthly fee. As you don't have any household bills to pay you won't get cashback to offset the 123 monthly fee.
The key point for me is - get organised... you will be setting up a lot of accounts and the application process for each will take (elapse) time as you wait for info to come through the post. Be clear which transfers you need to set up and which DDs you need to set up and tick them off your list as you do each one.
It is a lot of effort to get set up but pays real dividends in terms of interest that you can't get just by putting all your dosh in one account.0 -
Open a Nationwide Flexdirect - apart from the 5% on £2500 for a year, you will also be able to access the 5% Flex regular saver which permits you to deposit up to £500 a month.
Open a TSB Plus - £2000 @5%. Regular saver available.
Open a Lloyds Club - £5000. Regular saver available.
2 DDs required on Lloyds - regular pay ins required on all of above to be managed as suits you best.
Open a couple of Tesco current accounts and a couple of Tesco savings accounts - these are useful if you need to set up DDs on other accounts.
You can deposit £250 in each of the Tesco current accounts ( interest 3% on up to £3000 in each). You can add regular monthly amounts.
Move the monthly interest accruing on the NW/TSB/Lloyds into the Tesco current accounts and later into the savings accounts if you wish.
Current account holders with First Direct have access to the 6% regular saver.0
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