PREMIUM BOND THREAD

[Blondeshavemorefun]

New thread for us for June draw

Let’s hope we all win something next month

Nothing this month but I did win last month £25.

Got to be in it to win it @Hazel444

But that is bad odds. I have roughly the same as do win here and there

But to never win 💐💐

@justanotherneighinparadise

If you e won nothing since 2005 my best advice would be to take it all out and put it all back in again. For some odd reason this seems to work.

It really doesn't and it's rubbish advice. All you're achieving is taking your bonds out of the draw for one month.

The reason why newer bonds seem to win more is that there's more of them. I don't know what the maximum holding was decades ago, but almost no-one would have had £50k worth, because that was many year's average income, whereas now, an awful lot of people have that amount, especially as it's just about the only way to get more than zero return on instant access savings.

The maximum is £50k to limit the return while still making it an attractive product.

The government is not supposed to use it's size and advantage of safety to offer products that are massively more attractive than commercial banks. If the maximum holding and/or payout rate was higher people would be putting hundreds of thousands of pounds in, commercial banks couldn't compete and it would cost the government too much in prizes - it can borrow from other sources for far less, so in today's climate a 1% 'interest rate' is quite generous.

If you have around £35k in, you should win around once a month.

But that's an average and over a population it follows a normal distribution, which means you should consider the whole population and wins over time.

For that holding, the average might be 10 wins a year and most people will win 9, 10 or 11 times a year, but a reasonable percentage will win 3 to 8 times a year or 12-15 times a year and maybe 5-10% of people will win 2 times a year or even fewer so not so rare that it won't ever happen to you.

I just automatically reinvest my winnings as I don't really regard it as a prize/free money that should be spent as my PBs are mainly money that would otherwise be used to overpay the mortgage, so the prizes are (more than) offsetting interest.

One of my bonds, just one, has been there since the 50s and that has never won anything!

I have about a fivers worth that are about 40 years old and they've never won anything either.

I like looking at the big winners list on the NS&I website for people who've won big from decades old tiny holdings.

The best this month is someone who won £100k from £1500 and another who won £5000 from £425 that they've had for 20 years, but sometimes you do see someone who's won £50k from having £20 since 1976 or something similarly remarkable.

www.nsandi.com/prize-checker/winners

I have £1000 in premium bonds and I've won £25 twice I think. I've never considered adding to it but I do have some savings I could use- at 0.05% interest there's little benefit to keeping them in my ISA!

Move your ISA, MyGee! You can easily do better (though I guess 0.05% was dramatic effect rather than fact?)

I often wonder why people leave money in accounts paying virtually nothing when you can move it to an account paying nearly 10 x as much, but when you can't even get £100 a year in interest on £20k if you want an instant access account, it doesn't seem worth the (minimal) effort.

A few weeks ago I signed up to a Chip account because it will pay around 1% interest, but it's one of those 'autosave' accounts and it's already annoying me with it's needy 'I've moved £41.23 to your savings accounts' notifications every few days, so I'm going to be closing it down as soon as I've qualified for the bonus or the interest rate drops.

One advantage of almost no interest being available anywhere is that you don't feel like you have to move your accounts around to get it. I'm just leaving money in my current account and buying PBs with any spare. It won't be long before I get to the maximum and after that I might even start overpaying the mortgage (interest rate almost nothing so it's not been worth it up to now).

@UnkindlyMay it really is 0.05, I checked! I've been meaning to move it for ages but hadn't actually done anything about it.

First time ever that neither me or DW won anything. Both on max holdings. Hopefully June will be different!

@Hazel444

Once again I didn't win a thing (£10,000 of bonds since 2005 and never a single win).

Anyone know why the maximum holding is £50k by the way?

You can't have won nothing with £10,000 of bonds over 16 years. That's so extraordinarily unlikely. The average person would have won thousands of pounds over that time. Either you've got a lot of unclaimed prizes somewhere or you've got less in your account than you think.

I often wonder why people leave money in accounts paying virtually nothing when you can move it to an account paying nearly 10 x as much, but when you can't even get £100 a year in interest on £20k if you want an instant access account, it doesn't seem worth the (minimal) effort.

That's exactly it @BarbaraofSeville, I only have about 5k in there (and need to be able to access it) so I wouldn't gain much at all by moving it.

Hi, sorry to jump on thread with probably obvious question but if your address details are up to date do they contact you by post if you have won? I remember a “prize from ERNIE” letter years ago when I won £50. Has that changed? Do I need to check online now? Thanks

You can't have won nothing with £10,000 of bonds over 16 years. That's so extraordinarily unlikely. The average person would have won thousands of pounds over that time. Either you've got a lot of unclaimed prizes somewhere or you've got less in your account than you think.

This would be a really weird thing for me to make up. I manage the account online these days so definitely don't have any unclaimed prizes and I'm not innumerate so I can read the balance just fine!

I agree that it seems very unlikely to have won nothing from that holding over 16 years. It's like tossing a coin 200 times and never getting heads.

@BarbaraofSeville

I agree that it seems very unlikely to have won nothing from that holding over 16 years. It's like tossing a coin 200 times and never getting heads.

Bloody hell, I didn't realise this thread was in aibu where the veracity of what someone is saying is questioned! It's very unlikely to win the lottery too, but it happens. I have not won a single prize since I've had the bonds, not even one of the £25 prizes. I do actually have slightly over £10k now as I've set up a standing order to buy £30 more per month over the past year or so, so I do have some new bonds in too.

I've got maximum holidays first month (April) I won £75 second month (may) I won £150 I'm really pleased!

@Hazel444, we're trying to be helpful, what you're saying is so unlikely that there could be a mistake somewhere.

Or you haven't held anywhere near £10k for more than a few months.

I have a little under £5k held on behalf of my kids. Nothing this month. We've had them for around two years and one £25 prize so far. More than my 3 year old would have had in interest though so

Can anyone tell me whether holding bonds in the kids names as the "responsible authority" means their bonds total is deducted off my max holding allowed? Just interested as I certainly don't have £50k i.e. if they have £25k each, does that mean I can't hold a y bonds in my own name until theirs are officially theirs at 16?

This would be a really weird thing for me to make up. I manage the account online these days so definitely don't have any unclaimed prizes and I'm not innumerate so I can read the balance just fine!

I honestly wasn't accusing you of lying. I just thought you might have made a mistake - like someone had emptied your premium bonds account or the prizes were being paid into an old bank account, or something like that. But if you've got an online account and all seems fine, then I guess that's not the case. Obviously a win isn't guaranteed, and it's possible you really have won nothing in that time, but it just seems so unlikely that I think I'd be on the phone to NS&I if I were you, to check there hasn't been some sort of mistake

@TangledUp789

You can't have won nothing with £10,000 of bonds over 16 years. That's so extraordinarily unlikely. The average person would have won thousands of pounds over that time.

I think the average person would be very lucky to win thousands over that time frame.

Well, you’d expect £100 a year at the current approx interest rate, and it used to be higher, so between 1and 2k isn’t unreasonable over 16 years.

I think the average person would be very lucky to win thousands over that time frame.

Why's that? By my calculation if you invested £10K today you would expect to win approximately £1500 in the next 16 years (that's if you reinvested your prizes). And the prize rate is currently at its lowest. Back in 2005 the odds of winning a prize were better and the smallest prize was £50. Surely the average return over that time would be well over £3000?

I see the calculations on MSE suggests 75GPB per year on 10k as an average.

So average over time could be around 1250 - 1500 but I am greedy and want tbe big one or even 2 big ones.