Current Portfolios?

[Sarah]

See here for Halifax Rewards accounts:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=87736&start=120#p279605

The limit per person is now 3 regardless of whether they're individual or joint accounts.

[planteria]

oh thank you pp and Sarah. ideally I’d like an incentive on the way in, but two or three more £5/m would be good. recycling through NS&I would be the way to trigger the payments i think.

[Sarah]

I usually do Skipton deposits instead for Halifax Rewards, mostly because I already feel bad enough about hitting NS&I pretty hard for TSB transactions.

[parchedpeas]

NSI have a 3 day turn around from deposit to withdrawal, so that is annoying. I usually just load the Amex with all the spending I can over the month and then that takes care of some of the £500 debit card payments.

For TSB, I use 20 x £1 payments into Octopus energy which is very quick and easy. If I end up with a credit balance, I'll request a refund every now and again. I've also heard that 0.01p payments to a friend via Paypal works, but I abused that to get my RBS / Natwest Digital Savers up to £5k each using the round-up feature so I'm not in a rush to go back there anytime soon.

[planteria]

useful to know Sarah. not sure if i can get the details to make online payments into my Skipton account, but that could be a useful additional option.

...then that takes care of some of the £500 debit card payments.

as you pay your Amex bill using a debit card?

For TSB, I use 20 x £1 payments into Octopus energy which is very quick and easy.

handy to know. i have an Octopus account in one place but it's a ppm, for now at least.

I've also heard that 0.01p payments to a friend via Paypal works, but I abused that to get my RBS / Natwest Digital Savers up to £5k each using the round-up feature so I'm not in a rush to go back there anytime soon.

what did you do here sorry pp?

[parchedpeas]

RBS and NatWest have 2 "Digital Saver" accounts, with interest rates of 6.17% AER up to £5k:

https://www.rbs.co.uk/savings/digital-r ... saver.html

But you can only deposit £150 a month, so it takes an age to get up to the Max balance of £5,000.

However, Round Ups don't count towards the £150, so if you spend £0.01p, then £0.99p is rounded up into the savings account (so you pay £1, 0.01p goes to PayPalGift account, 99p goes into Savings:

https://www.rbs.co.uk/savings/tools-for ... d-ups.html

They also let you "double up" on Round-ups, so for every £0.01p spent, you get £1.98 paid into the Digital Saver. It's a neat way to accelerate payments into the Digital Savings account so you can max out £5,000 @ 6.17% AER.

I did *a lot* of 0.01p payments for each of the 4 accounts I did it on But £20k sitting in there now gives me around £100 interest a month.

[Sarah]

How did you end up with 4 accounts? Did they fail to enforce this condition?

You can only have one Digital Regular Saver and it needs to be in your name. Joint accounts aren’t allowed.

[parchedpeas]

Sorry, should clarify 1x RBS, 1 x NatWest for me and same for Mrs PP. But also an easy £3 a month from each of these accounts (£5 for 2 x DDs minus the £2 fee).

If you don't already have their current account, worth waiting for a switch offer, they normally do at least 1 a year (and you can get one each for NatWest / RBS even though they say you can't (plus Ulster Bank, if you're feeling brave).

[planteria]

But you can only deposit £150 a month, so it takes an age to get up to the Max balance of £5,000. However, Round Ups don't count towards the £150, so if you spend £0.01p, then £0.99p is rounded up into the savings account..

just to be sure i've got it pp, none of money making up the £5k balances has been foc, it's all your money that has been 'rounded up' into the savings account? if some of it is free savings then i'm all over this

[Sarah]

They also let you "double up" on Round-ups, so for every £0.01p spent, you get £1.98 paid into the Digital Saver. It's a neat way to accelerate payments into the Digital Savings account so you can max out £5,000 @ 6.17% AER.

Just noticed they've increased the round-up multiplier options, now up to maximum 5X.

just to be sure i've got it pp, none of money making up the £5k balances has been foc, it's all your money that has been 'rounded up' into the savings account?

Yes, it's simply moving our own money to earn a higher interest rate.