Banks and Building Societies
Comments
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I only have the HSBC account as it gives me access to a 5% monthly saver, plus it had a linked ISA for 12 months with a really good bonus, plus a £125 switching bonus.
OH has a First Direct account that has a similar, linked monthly saver.
Nationwide and Santander also do linked monthly savers that pay 5% interest.
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Was it a cash ISa or stocks and shares Isa?
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I'm reluctant to open any more new accounts as my wallet is already bursting with too much plastic!
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It was a cash ISA, now empty, OH, who is not a tax payer at all, holds the few shares we have.
Now, if you are a basic rate taxpayer, or pay no tax at all, you have a £1000 savings interest "allowance" tax free, so unless you have a lot of savings, ISAs are not necessary.
We get more interest using interest bearing current accounts.
There is also good, tax free,money to be earned from switching bonuses. Just before Christmas OH got one from Clydesdale and I got one from Nat West.
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There is no need to carry all the debit cards around with you, we only carry the one for our main account, in case we need cash, plus a few credit cards. We never pay with a debit card, we use the bank's money instead.
We have closed down a few accounts recently, 4 I think, as they were no longer making much money, I leave the detail of these things to OH to sort. She knows where all the best deals are to be found.
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We have three Banks within 200 yards of each other in our very small local town. Less than 1.5 miles from home, parking 30p and 200 yard to furthest bank. NatWest, Lloyds and HSBC. I probably go into HSBC branch about 5 times a year to get cash.
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Using the "banks" money on a credit can cause ongoing and prolonged debt for some. Unless you have funds to pay of the debt each month an ordinary debit card is better, some banks offer rewards on their accounts if customers stay in credit.
I think as people get older it's a good idea to simplify accounts unless you have a trustworthy whizz kid in the family who will operate your accounts for you when you are less able.
IMHO (as usual
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Shuffling money between accounts to get various perks can be somewhat tedious. Even then, in the great scheme of things it's probably only a tenner or so, it seems a lot of hassle for not a lot.
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We very rarely need to go into a bank. There is a Barclays branch in town, but I can't remember the last time I used it. And I believe it's all "hi-tech" now with banks of self service machines.
I needed quite a large amount cash earlier this year (to pay someone) so I went to a smaller branch seven miles away and my husband was able to drop me off, drive once round the block and pick me up (riding shotgun for my bulging wallet).
We never receive cash so never have to pay any in. I use the ATM in the supermarket to withdraw what we need.
All the business (and personal) banking is done online and if we need any help with the business account I email our manager and he comes out to see us. The bank also has a business centre on the outskirts of town where I can take in documents etc instead of posting.
All in all we're happy with the service we get.
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More of a problem are all of the passwords / identifiers that enable you to handle the accounts online. Even worse when I had all my mums to service as well.
Even more annoying is the fact that you need to go in regularly on both types of access or risk getting locked out. For Nat West I generally use the App on my phone, so did not use the main website access for a while. You can't set up new payees on the App though, so had to use the main site. However, because I had not used it for a while, they had locked me out and I had to get it reopened. Similarly for the App, I usually sort most of the banking, so OH had not used her App for a while and was locked out. This required setting up the App from scratch again.
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I admit to being an interest rate tart out for necessity because of the poor rates 😉. I have always enjoyed checking out best accounts but my interest has declined over the last few years with very poor interest rates. But I keep a list of account numbers, who they're with how much is in there and interest paid. Updated annually into very clear legibility just in case 😲. We have £500 which is in no man's land that bounces between current accounts to ensure that we meet the income requirement to get the benefits - these are current accounts and apart from the current account we use for transactions all cards are locked away 😆. Interest on current accounts is paid monthly and shifted to another account to continue earning interest. Santander give cashbook on household bills so one account there can pay £30 a month after charges. Not to be sneezed at. This is where the beauty of online banking comes into its own, couldn' be bothered if it was all phyical withdrawals and paying in ☺.
We maitain cash ISA's for their tax free status just in case, but those rates are so poor. You can usually earn double the amount they offer we haven't opened new ones since interest was taxed at source, but continue to shift existing ISA'S to best paying accounts when necessary.
I agree with Brue about years to come and complications and am ever mindful of it. OH leaves the detail to me and does at least know where we have accounts if not which ones 😂😂.
I think the banks rely on loyal customers, similarly insurance companies, to make easy money. IMHO naturally 😉
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Yes, that's why I've stayed with the same bank for 11 years!
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That's another reason why I have not opened any new accounts, including having to remember new pin numbers!
Fortunately, I have never been locked out because I log in either through the App or website on a daily basis for both business and personal accounts. I also use the App to get fast balance.
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I use two banks: Tesco Bank and HSBC. I have current accounts, savings accounts, cash isa and 3 credit card accounts.
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I use any deals offered in balance or money transfers from existing credit card accounts and I pay money from my HSBC current account to my Tesco Bank current account to make funds available for fuel and shopping through my Tesco debit card which earns me double points.
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I personally think there is more to be saved by varying your allegiance to supermarkets than switching money between banks. We vary between, Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose and Morrisons depending who sends us vouchers. Asda don't have a loyalty card, so don't send them. This means they keep trying to get you back. Currently I have a 12p off a litre to use, plus £10 of £50 at Sainsbury's. Then it's Waitrose for a few weeks, as they have sent us four £20 off £100 vouchers, plus a lot for money off things we usually buy. Friends who usually shop at the same place, never seem to get them, much to their annoyance.☹️
Oh we also buy a few things at Aldi. Although I always seem to get tempted by the special buys on tools etc, so it generally works out more expensive than Waitrose.😂
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We have a Tesco credit card but very rarely use their stores now as they seem expensive ,and as we now have both Aldi (new)and Lidl we use the Tesco card at those ,,unless as is getting more often now Tesco keep sending us vouchers to use in their stores, which more than compensates for not as many "points"which are getting less "attractive" all the time
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Very true, brue, never spend more than you can afford to pay back.
For us, using credit cards is just a convenient way of doing things, only one bill every month, or actually as we have a few different cards, most months it is 4 bills (M&S, Tesco, and Barclaycard x 2). No need to keep track of the current account daily.
We know how much we can afford to spend and are not really into impulse purchases, all spending is more than covered by savings in the bank.
I keep various spreadsheets, even though we have internet banking, and at the start of each month I can see how much we can move to savings and when, as our pensions arrive at various times in the month. My company pension is on the 1st, State pensions weekly on a Monday, and my Norwegian pension usually on the 20th.
Some months we do need to pull money out of savings to cover the CC bills, months when we have big purchases such as the car insurances, VED, Caravan insurance, home insurance, but overall our annual spending will be well below annual income, we have never used an overdraft , paid credit card interest, or had a bank loan. We also have DDs set up to pay all credit cards in full.
At the moment we still have enough brain left to operate this way, but our children have POA they can use when necessary, and our daughter is every bit as astute as her Mother when it comes to money.
For passwords, I have a secure system to store them so I only need to remember the master password, and DD has a note of it, but the accounts we use regularly we still manage to remember the details of, so far!!
For the accounts that need a minimum monthly pay in, I have a spreadsheet with those details, and for our monthly savers I have a spreadsheet that updates the totals on the correct day of the month.
We used to have the monthly pay-ins going by standing order, but after a few months we found that it was easier to do it manually, saves having to make allowances for Bank Holidays and weekends.
I also have a spreadsheet to keep track of the interest we receive, makes doing the tax returns much easier!
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That depends on what the banks are offering. We use the additional current accounts as a home for our cash savings that we might want to access.
They pay far more interest than ordinary savings accounts, but the amount they pay interest on does have a limit, hence the need to have several accounts.
Like B2, OH enjoys being a "rate tart", and is meantime doing quite well at relieving the banks of a decent amount each month....about £120 at present. Not as much as it used to be unfortunately, and about to get even worse.
At least we are helping the kids get lower mortgage rates!
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Many banks will offer a switching bonus, at least £100, often more, so loyalty is not generally rewarded. Same as utility companies and insurance companies.
Switching bank accounts is very easy these days, the bank does all the work for you.
We have stayed with Halifax for our main account since 2003, before that we were with Clydesdale for almost 40 years. But the other accounts come and go and can be used to earn switching bonuses.
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Goodness me Kj, are you running a finance company (jokingly said!
)I have neither the time, wit nor patience to run anything more complicated than what I have now and each year I try to lessen the amount of time I spend thinking about it. I don't even own a credit card. I dislike having to shift anything around to increase an income by small amounts, these amounts do indeed add up but I guess we have saved money and made money in other ways. A garage full of "stuff" does occasionally have some value etc.etc.
I suppose we started out with nothing and we certainly can't take it with us!
Having written that I must do a bit more clearing out soon.
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I do agree to a large extent,but until the banks start to offer decent interest rates on ordinary savings accounts, it seems the only way to keep up with inflation.
We are also working on "not taking it with us", by running the Bank of Mum and Dad!
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