Savings? Do you? What type? How much? Where?

[nkf]

That's it really. Not the most riveting topic in the world but useful.

I'm currently wondering whehter I should pay off my student loan before saving any more. Or split extra money four ways ratehr tahn three.

How does rainy day feature in other people's planning?

No advice.

see what the rate of interest is on your student loan and compare it to the best savings rate and then see which is better to do. In general student loans used to have miniscule interest rates so it wasn't really worth paying them off - that may have changed now though...

I have a random savings approach:

Save child benefit in ISA
Longer term savings in online acct
Car/emergency work savings acct - save monthly in online acct.
Personal savings - linked bank acct.

Should really set up a rainy day acct although I guess that could be the car one if we don't need any repairs etc.

from sept if you got a loan after 1998 (i think) you will be paying 0% interest on it as the RPI has gone down so low (technically they should be paying us for having the loan apparently but they won't do that!)

Check it all out on moneysavingexpert.com
great website for all financial stuff.

The interest rate is less than 3%. It's going to take years to pay off but it feels like paying tax becomes out of my income.

At the moment, I pay that off via the income.
Save money to an ISA for emergencies
Save money to long term account for the children.

Personally I don't think it's worth paying off any more of your student loan. They will take it automatically if you earn more than 11/13K (sorry, can't remember exactly), if you don't earn more than this you don't have to pay & when you die, the debt dies with you so your estate won't inherit it

Use your ISA allowance first - this is a tax free saving. (£3,600 for mini cash ISA, £7K if linked to stocks/shares). I think fill up the ISA, then into a savings account paying as much interest as poss (bonded would be your best rates, as long as you're sure you wouldn't need to access it in the time it's bonded as you'd lose the good rates) www.lovemoney.com has useful comparison charts & advice on any restrictive clauses, etc. Sorry about the long post - I bore myself sometimes!!