To draw your attention to the govt Help to Save scheme

[DustyDiamond]

I don't actually think I'm being unreasonable at all tbh so a disingenuous thread premise 😳😂

I've posted here because AIBU has the greatest amount of traffic & it's something I think people should be aware of if it's applicable to them....

Anyhoo!

I've just found out today about the Government run Help to Save thing for low earners on Tax Credit or Universal Credit.

If you know anyone that fits the eligibility criteria then please have a look at it & pass it on in case they too have never heard of it & may be interested.

Basically:

• You can save up to £50 per month in the account
• You don't have to pay in every month
• You can withdraw money at any point
• The account is active for 4 years, at which point it auto closes
• You can close it at any point during the 4 years if you want

There are 2 bonus points (after 2 years, and after 4 years) at each of these two points you'll get a 50% tax free bonus of the max balance you had on the account over the previous 2 years
(small print is that the 2nd two year period bonus is only calculated on any extra amount compared with the first two year period)

So! If you save £10 per week for the full 4 years without withdrawing anything, you'll have:

• saved £2,080
• received a £520 tax free bonus at 2 yr point
• received another £520 tax free bonus at 4 yr point

The bonuses do not affect your benefits & you can keep using the account if your benefits stop for any reason (eg start working & earning too much for benefits)

As I said, I'd never heard of this before & its def something I think should be known about more (think it was rolled out last year?)

I've just opened my account today & I've set up a standing order for a small amount each week that I shouldn't miss - if nothing else I can look forward to a couple of bonus payments over next 4 years & at the end have a small lump sum of savings to put towards something

It's very easy to do - you can apply for an account via your tax credit summary page on the govt gateway.

Link to Martin Lewis's appraisal of it:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/help-to-save/

I'm currently using this to save up to buy my first car (fingers crossed I pass my test 🤞😂)

😍 good luck sprite!!

My kids saved £5 a week, every week from their paper rounds from 13 to put towards driving - seems such a tiny amount, but added up to just over £1000 over the 4 years!!!

Blimey, that’s an incredible scheme! Does anyone know which party introduced it?

Thank you! Opened

From what I can see, David Cameron floated it in 2016 & it was rolled out properly last year.

Thank you! Opened

🙌🙌🙌

It's so easy to do!!

Yep signed up last week with the first £50 saved, head down keep working and looking forward to the £600 bonus in 2 years, great idea and good on ya for spreading the word!

@Etinox conservatives, but they stopped a similar scheme a few years before which Labour had introduced, so...

@Pomley, yes just looked it up. Very impressed.

Wow this is astonishing. Good on the Conservatives!

A 50% tax free bonus is unheard of in the current savings climate. This is a fantastic way of giving people a hand to build up a little peace of mind financially.

O wow! Sounds great! Will try to open one. Thanks for spreading the word.

@DustyDiamondIt was super easy! And the bonus will be a huge boost for us. Thank you!

Great scheme! Also both parents are often eligible so you can get 2 lots of savings if you can stretch that far. It’s an amazing deal and a great way to encourage saving. You can withdraw funds at any point too so no panic in a emergency, they than base the bonus on the highest balance you have had during the scheme

Good for you OP for raising awareness. For my contribution can I suggest anyone who is saving towards a house deposit then pay the money into life time isa when the help to save closes, which would give you an extra 25%. This would mean you end up with £4500, if you pay £50 a month into the HTS, and then put it all plus bonus into the LISA (2400 paid in over 4 years).

Realise there's not much overlap between low earners and home buyers. But where I live (north) you can get a 2 bed semi for 70k, which would be doable on a 15k salary.

This looks really good Dusty

The Lisa scheme is great too, I agree forever, I made my student DD open one for £1, just to secure access in case the scheme was ever closed. She occasionally puts a fiver in to boost it when she can, and if I have spare in a month I give her a bit extra to put in too. She wants to buy a house one day in the future, so hopefully it will really help to have the bonus on a deposit.

It’s a shame that these schemes aren’t better advertised really, I didn’t know about the above until today from Dusty, and had only heard of the Lisa through Martin Lewis. Well done Dusty for spreading the word!

For my contribution can I suggest anyone who is saving towards a house deposit then pay the money into life time isa when the help to save closes, which would give you an extra 25%. This would mean you end up with £4500, if you pay £50 a month into the HTS, and then put it all plus bonus into the LISA (2400 paid in over 4 years)

😮😮😮

That's unbelievable!

I got my eldest (17) to open some sort of ISA thing a couple of months back - can't remember what it was called but access to starting it closes this year I think (my mum told me about it as she'd seen Martin Lewis talking about it somewhere)

Might have been something like a young savers ISA or help to buy or something?
I can't remember now...
He's putting a wee bit into that every week now.

So glad people are opening the Savers Accounts off the back of this thread though!! 😍😍

Thank you for sharing this!

Thanks Dusty, I'm going to open one too. and look into savings in ISAs etc. for DD and DS.

Found it shortly after I was claiming Universal Credit for a bit earlier this year. Yeah, it's basically 25% / yr interest. A big improvement over regular savings accounts that are paying peanuts nowadays. Even though it does come with strings attached.

Bumping so more can see this .

I only just discovered the HTS through a poster on another thread! Really good scheme.