From my first ever blog I spoke about personal finances and
making a budget. Today, I am going to talk about ways I have invested my
savings. This is not a lecture on investment, just a few easy things that will
get your head thinking.
After my first pay, I was so happy to start my savings
account. I wanted to put the money into an account, and see the interest coming
in and see my saving grow. In the first few months that I started saving, interest
rates were over 5%, monthly interest was really something. I would get £10 in a
good month...then it happened, the global crisis took its toll, the Bank of
England started cutting its interest rate down to a 0.5%!! Gone were the days
of interest rates above £10, welcome to the era of the penny interest rates!
The options I am going to discussion are things I have tried
and it does not consider long term investments. (This is not financial advice;
this is just sharing what I have done!!)
So with the world of 0.5% interest what does one save in!
Well if money isn’t really earning any interest why not put it in premium bonds,
where if you are lucky, you could get drawn for the monthly prize award, £25 to
£100,000 (though I have only known people to win the £50). The great thing
about this option is the money is not in your reach so you can’t just go into a
shop and spend it BUT it can be changed to cash quickly, at no cost! And the
prizes are tax free!
The other option I have ventured into was investing in the
FTSE tracker....I used to hear people talk about this but did not really know
how to get into it or even where to begin....thanks to Google and
moneysupermarket.com, I found out who could offer this service and at what
cost. I will admit, the better option if you are looking to lock in money over
£1,000 is just to go to your local bank and ask them and ‘I believe’ you never lose your
original investment, which is really good! All earnings are also tax free.
After all this I settled for Virgin Money, you can invest
any amount as low as £1 and they charge 1% of your investment value when you remove
you savings. Only problem is they don’t promise to protect your initial
investment and for a first time investor August 2011 was a very tense month for
me, with the market going down and debating on removing my savings. As it turns
out, it does go back up; you just have to have some patience.
Finally, my personal favourite and quickest way to make a
bit of money is just opening a Halifax reward account and pay in £1,000 a month
and keep it overnight and you get £5 each month, this is the easiest money I am
making money at the moment. Even though it is £60 over the year, but for 12
days for a few hours a YEAR, it’s too good a deal to pass! It’s a guaranteed £5
extra....why not! And if you are thinking really for £5 a month, well am
guessing if you saw a £5 note on floor you would not pick it up....thought
so....
Finally, it’s always good to have online savings accounts as
they give you a higher return than normal saving accounts and you will be ready
and waiting for when the interest rates start going up!
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