premium bonds.

[Scotsrich]

We’ve just put my wife’s share of her late fathers house into PB.

At the moment we’re taking out more of my drawdown pension than it’s making so the idea is to stop that and live on the PB money for 18 months till she get her pension then regroup after that.

At present PB will be making as much as my pension

[Pirahna]

This explains premium bonds well enough:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savin ... ium-bonds/

To save anybody reading it, any account that pays more than 1% interest is a better investment.

[Jody]

We’ve just put my wife’s share of her late fathers house into PB.

At the moment we’re taking out more of my drawdown pension than it’s making so the idea is to stop that and live on the PB money for 18 months till she get her pension then regroup after that.

At present PB will be making as much as my pension

I don't usually like to put figures on things because it can wind people up, but I have the maximum in PBs and it returns about £300-350 a year in prizes, so it's not much of a pension...or do you mean percentage wise? It works out at about 0.5%.

I'm no financial advisor so take this with a pinch of salt, but if I had >£50k to £500k to speculate with then I'd be looking for a platform where you can hold equities/bonds in mutuals and ETFs. Get a proper FA though, I use a financial advisor because I'm not sure I'm clever enough to not lose all my money, and between us it does ok, the aim is 6% pa. It's been more since covid but that's an anomaly.

If I had <£50k and I couldn't afford for it to fluctuate (i.e. to lose any) then I'd just stick it in the bank or PBs.

I know nothing of P2P lending, it sounds scary.

A few years ago I looked at buying small commercial properties (workshops and stuff) with a view to leasing them, but I didn't pull the trigger and I don't think I would now, but it's still a good idea if you get the right ones.

My kid brother has had great success with it. All borrowing is secured on the property so the risk is pretty low. He did have one person that fell behind. A few months later he got back on his feet, paid all the back payments and some extra to make up for lost interest.

[Pirahna]

£50 for me, nothing for wifey. That's this months excitement done with.

[Mr. Dazzle]

To save anybody reading it, any account that pays more than 1% interest is a better investment.

If anyone is interested, you can actually get significantly better than 1% if you can guarantee you're not going to touch the money for a fixed period.

https://www.flagstoneim.com/clients/rates/

I have no affiliation or money with that bunch BTW, they're just the first example I found on Google. I have a similar set up via my investment/pension/savings provider.

[KungFooBob]

3x £25!!!

That's £150 YTD!

[Pirahna]

I do need to do something better with the money. Both wifey and I have the maximum amount of bonds and the return is below the 1% you think your going to get.

[Mr. Dazzle]

By way of comparison, I got (i just looked) £17 in dividends this month on £2500 worth of corporate bonds. Thats just this month.

That money is just a little bit of "cash" half way between long term savings and immediately available cash cash. I had it spare so I stuck it in some bond funds. The actual value has gone down a smidge - it's like £2400something now - but as above, I've got the dividends. I'm not planning on selling them and they can just sit there going up and down a bit and (hopefully!) paying more 'interest' than the bank would.

'Course...I'm never gonna get a million quid like I might on premium bonds. But realistically I'm not gonna get a million quid from PBs either. I might I suppose. But really, I'm not.

Edit: I don't actually mean bonds, I mean equities.

[Dodgy69]

25 x 2

[Asian Boss]

I bought some. Just for t'craic, like. I'm just in it for t'craic.

Anyway, I assumed I'd win a million pounds. What did I win? Twenty five pounds. What a swizz.

[Count Steer]

'Course...I'm never gonna get a million quid like I might on premium bonds. But realistically I'm not gonna get a million quid from PBs either. I might I suppose. But really, I'm not.

True, but there's a lot of prizes between £25 & 1M. IIIRC Big Nige won one - he only described it as 'quite a big one' though. Risk/reward innit? Makes a decent part of a portfolio and it's pretty safe although not inflation proof

[v8-powered]

£75 for me, £25 for the missus....

[Mr. Dazzle]

'Course...I'm never gonna get a million quid like I might on premium bonds. But realistically I'm not gonna get a million quid from PBs either. I might I suppose. But really, I'm not.

True, but there's a lot of prizes between £25 & 1M. IIIRC Big Nige won one - he only described it as 'quite a big one' though. Risk/reward innit? Makes a decent part of a portfolio and it's pretty safe although not inflation proof

I reckon they only make sense if you plan to hold them for a long time...10s of years. The oft quoted "interest rate" is an average innit? So you might realistically not win anything sizeable for years and years but get a decent chunk in year 11 which balances out.

[Count Steer]

'Course...I'm never gonna get a million quid like I might on premium bonds. But realistically I'm not gonna get a million quid from PBs either. I might I suppose. But really, I'm not.

True, but there's a lot of prizes between £25 & 1M. IIIRC Big Nige won one - he only described it as 'quite a big one' though. Risk/reward innit? Makes a decent part of a portfolio and it's pretty safe although not inflation proof

I reckon they only make sense if you plan to hold them for a long time...10s of years. The oft quoted "interest rate" is an average innit? So you might realistically not win anything sizeable for years and years but get a decent chunk in year 11 which balances out.

Yes, by portfolio I mean few % of a longer term plan.

Short term is either protecting money eg NS&I savings or gambling

Speaking of gambling, if you put £20/week into both premium bonds and the lottery (aka 'the poor man's tax') at the end of the year you'll have (guaranteed) >£1k in one and probably nothing in the other - both give you a chance of a decent win...but people still do the lottery

[Mr. Dazzle]

Lots of providers will take care of the 'spreading out' for you TBF. You only see one account, but your money is actually in several banks.

It costs more/returns less than doing it yourself manually of course but you can't get something for nothing.

P.S. I only play the lottery when it's >£100million. I'll pay the idiot tax for the chance of winning that

[Count Steer]

I gather that some people use the NS&I app to check their PBs. Is it any good? The score on Play Store for the Android version is a miserable 2.1. (Lots of scores of 1...there is no 0). Not too surprising as the web site looks like it's been designed by committee, so I guess the app isn't going to be state of the art.

I normally just wait for the email or the money to land in the bank. I did wonder if it made paying in on odd occasions easier but it looks like it's only a results checker.

[KungFooBob]

The app doesn't do much, just tells you if you won or not and how many days to the next draw. It works tho'

People probably hope it allows them to manage their account, etc.. but it doesn't.

[Count Steer]

The app doesn't do much, just tells you if you won or not and how many days to the next draw. It works tho'

People probably hope it allows them to manage their account, etc.. but it doesn't.

Cheers. I was hoping that I could clickety-click and stick a few quid in every now and again using my phone (the security on the web access makes it feel like Fort Knox). Hey ho, I'll carry on as is.

[formula400]

Jumped on this band wagon, I am 2 months in and won nothing, you lot sold the dream I’d be raking in £25’s all over the shop

[slowsider]

Jumped on this band wagon, I am 2 months in and won nothing, you lot sold the dream I’d be raking in £25’s all over the shop

It's your money they are winning