maximising saving interest - advice please?

[changedtempforprivacy]

I am a reg poster but changed name for anonymity..

I have had a plan for maximising my savings for my one year old daughter, - a reg saver of £100/month with Halifax, plus a kids ISA for birthday/Christmas money gifts..

but when it comes to myself, I have been very lazy indeed over the last few years and just left £11,000 I had saved in an isa for the last 5 years, earning no interest, maybe 0.01% - saying that interest rates are so low I wouldn't get anything anyway..

having just looked on money saving expert, it seems I could get 0.85% interest for a similar isa with the Coventry building society, which over 5 years would pay me £480 interest, and I wouldn't have to change bank accounts etc,

are there any other good accounts where you can just open the savings account and have easy access? can anyone recommend ?

I am also doing dripping into 2 regular savers - virgin and leeds building society where you can put into each £250/month and get around 2% interest

I have opened lots of different savings pots over the years - all with Barclays who I main bank with, and several pots

1. £5,000 (everyday saver - no interest but easy access)
2. 11,000 - ISA
3. £8,000 - another everyday saver
4. £18,000 - "profit" so far on renting out my old flat for the last 2 years – this is what’s in the account from the rent income, and I pay all expenses like the (very large) buy to let mortgage, service charge etc from that account - but I do need some slush fund here to pay tax bill, and for repairs, replacing applicances etc- of maybe a few thousand?

5 . like to keep £2,000 or so in my current account as a buffer – but maybe this is silly too as not getting an interest…

I live in a house that is mortgaged, and I owe £240,000 on that mortgage.

I earn £46,000 pa plus I get the rental income, so higher rate tax payer. No child maintenance for daughter. I am divorced and single.

I do have a good public sector pension. I need some access to funds if I planned to do home improvements etc but mostly I am saving for a rainy day/ retirement/ hopefully private secondary school fees for my one year old if she needs it/ uni fees for her etc. Might need ot do £5 – 10,000 repairs to my home (putting that off)

I currently saving £500/month in to reg savers with virgin and leeds building society and getting 2% interest

Does anyone have any advice on what I should be doing to maximise interest on my savings – should I be consolidating into one account/ spreading into lots of different ones, forgetting about savings and overpaying my mortgage? ( I have never done this) – I owe £240,00, the interest rate is I think 1.89% fixed until Aug 2018. I bought the house last year for £340,000 but it won’t go up in value much (not London/south east), the old rented out flat is in zone 1 london so capital appreciation will be better. I don’t want to sell it as keeping my options open to move back to London if wanted

Can anyone advise me on what would be sensible to do with my savings to maximise interest?

the game is nearly over with this as Carney continues to kick savers. Here's what you can still do. All figures are pre-tax, I haven't allowed for your higher tax paying status.

inflation is already over 2% so anything below this is losing money.

• forget regular savers at 2%, do the actual sums (there are online calculators) and you will see that you get under half the headline rate. Only worth it for the 5% ones and even then you are looking at £83 a year max.
• shift the ISA to one paying 100 times as much. Still bugger all but 100 times more bugger all.
• the challenger banks offer 2% for a long tie-in. Still below inflation.
• bank accounts - open a Santander 123 for 3% interest and cash back. Fiver a month charge but if kept full will net you about £600 quid a year. TSB also do 3% but only on £1500, hardly worth it.
• if they ever allow it again, open two Tesco current accounts to generate 3% on 3k. Because Tesco are a bit stupid, they don't insist on regular pay-ins or direct debits. You can also use these accounts to 'move money in' which is seen by the other account as a direct debit. Say no more.
• get your switching bonuses from HSBC, First Direct and Halifax. Then close the accounts after the time elapsed. The first two have really bad websites so you won't want to stick around.

As you see it is all about buy to let, which is why so many are doing it. Otherwise you are screwed in all attempts to provide for yourself, apart from your pension.

interest on bank accounts in the UK is utterly shite at the moment in the UK

The best easy access rate that I can find currently is with Leeds Building Soc but it's still poor.

I get a good return on the Nutneg stocks isa - I selected medium risk so it's not without potential pitfall though. I also got cashback from opening it via Quidco. Total return (not incl cashback) has been 3.5% in just over three months.

What's the interest on your mortgage? Probably more than you'll get in interest without a lot of faffing. Check if you can create an overpayment reserve you can use if you are e.g. Between jobs. Also check how much you can overpay without penalties (it's usually 10% of the initial mortgage amount).

My residential mortgage is 1.89% and in the btl it's about 2.5% interest only.
I can overpay both 10% and both are 2 year deals ending summer 2018 when I need to remortgage. ..

No advice about savings - we have shockingly low rates. We have maxed the premium bonds in the hope we might get lucky!

But are you aware of the changes on tax relief for buy to let? That it's gradually being phased down so you'll only get relief at 20%.

TBH my best "savings" rate is piling money into my SIPP to pull out later

Thanks all, yes I'm aware about there tax changes on btl. I think it will still be worthwhile for me to keep my btl even if it's just breaking even...

Talk in peace..I don't know about SIPP so will have a google,

Thanks all for taking time to post

I have a Santander 123 current account, plus £2509 in a Nationwide current account (I have standing orders to do the £1000 a month credit), I have a Santander regular saver at 5% which I put the max into and when that ends this month I will open a Nationwide regular saver at 5%. I don't have an ISA. Haven't had for a long time due to the low rates. I'm a lower rate tax payer so I don't pay tax on my savings interest anyway.

If you do find anew account paying more than bugger all % rate let us all know. There are a few lockable rates of under 2% but with over seas banks.
Your better to over pay on your mortgage than save. We just paid ours off, saving 5 years in interest.

Put £3k in a Tesco current account to get 3% guaranteed for 2 years.

Make Santander 123 your main current account for 1.5% on the rest. The cashback on bills should be nearly the same or more than the £5 a month fee.

We get between £4 and £4.50 a month and our bills are relatively low - band A council tax, less than £20 pm on mobiles between us, no pay TV. Someone with more average bills would get more.

Or there may be more ideas for other current accounts on moneysavingexpert but then you will need to start setting up circulating SOs to meet the minimum monthly pay in amounts.

Tesco have suspended new applications for the 3% account to enable good service for already customers.

I can over pay on my mortgage and get it back as it's ringfenced as an overpayment.

I put the maximum £500 per month into the Nationwide flex savings then the rest just sits against the mortgage which saves me 2.5%...

Is it worth you investigating and off set mortgage linked to your current account???

You could just have some funds through a stocks and shares ISA. I'd also consider overpaying a mortgage/mortgages as your payments might get pretty steep when rates go up. I also second the SIPP or other pension idea as it comes out of gross earnings so will be very tax effective although you won't be old enough to draw it for school fees.