OT: Building society savings rates

I've never heard that one before! Unless its something to do with business accounts?

No it is related to a personal, so called loyalty account that pays

Try NS&I - no limit on what you can invest (AIR) and whilst the interest is not stunningly high it is very safe way of saving as there is no 'protection cap' as there is with banks/building societies. It is run and owned by Government hence the lack of protection cap as it is not a bank or BS. Its ideal for a short-stop house sale/purchase scenario. You'll still lose out to inflation (both RPI and house prce) but you will mitigate some of the loss.

Re the HMRC limit I'd go back to Nationwide and ask them for the evidence to back up their claim. That is, if you can be bothered.

you have zero chance of achieving that

tim

A problem for all of us that aren't poverty stricken chavs. I downsized houses thirteen years ago from a five bedroom house and fifty acres to a twoand a half with 2 acres.. I got solar panels and a heritage car.

I suppose the other thing is buy to let housing. But lots of hassle I fancy.

I was informed a month ago by the TSB that their interest rate on my savings accounts with fall to 0.05%. Since when I have been looking for an alternative place to lodge a good sum of money. Today (via the MS) I found an account at

You transfer to and from your normal bank account, which is essential.

Talking of which, is their any point at all in a pensioner having an ISA account?

Yes, if they pay income tax - particularly if they pay at the higher rate.

Not necessarily. You now get a personal savings allowance of £1000 a year tax free (up to £5000 if your income is less than £16,000). At 1% interest you'ld need £100,000 of savings to pay tax on isavings interest.

It's still £500 a year if you're a high rate tax payer, so ISAs are only worth it if you are very wealthy and then I expect you would be able to find much better investments!

Well they seem to have slightly higher interest rates than the non-ISA savings accounts.

Don't they also save you from the faff of CGT, if you are using trackers?

I'd guess that for most, ISAs are pretty much irrelevant anyway:

Sounds like a load of tosh to me. Unless its some kind of special case . Brian

That sounds like a cop out to me. They often put in some clause A copy out how much of the capital you can get access to fast, since of course the whole point of a building society is that they are using that to lend money and of course fund their activities and have to make a reasonable profit themselves.

Brian

Max Demian formulated on Friday :

Not in the case of my account - my TSB Cash ISA account is presently paying 0.05%. Exactly the same rate as my eSavings account with them, hence my looking around for something with a better rate.

I think Santander is 0.5% and Barclays 0.6% (easy/flexible access). But they keep dropping the rates.

It's always worth noting that *if* you are lucky enough to have >£10k ish to save, premium bonds will return around 1% tax free over reasonable periods. I did the calculations out of interest and once you are in the region of £30k, you can expect regular £25 prizes tending to average to the design yield (little over 1% ATM). £10k will work too, but you may have to ride it for a year to get the average. The full £50k should see average returns over a couple of months.

And you get the extra fun of "maybe £1mil"

Max Demian submitted this idea :

I didn't want an account where it needed a level of funds going in or one where it had to have so many utility bills going out via DD. I am already tied into such an account. I also wanted one where I could instantly withdraw.

This is a bit of a fallacy.

Whilst the average should work out to be the stated figure, you have to take all the high value prizes out of the prize kitty first and then distribute the remainder amongst the the remaining drawn numbers.

I've had £30k in since 2009 and not got near the published figures.

That applies to mine. And (at least for the Barclays one), I can draw money out, and pay it back in again, without violating the ISA rules. (It's a _flexible_ ISA.)