Savers who have left funds languishing with their high street providers could have missed out on hundreds of pounds in lost interest.
If you had placed £85,000 in the NatWest Instant Saver at the beginning of December 2016, you’d now have £8.50 in gross interest to spend this Christmas, as opposed to £974.07 if you had monitored and switched to the best easy access account throughout the year.
Even if you had stuck with the best buy account chosen at the outset, (RCI Bank Freedom Account), you would have earned nearly as much (£969 gross), as this provider has remained competitive all year.
And for those who didn’t need access to their savings, they could have opened a fixed rate bond paying up to 1.40% gross/AER for 12 months and earned £1,190 in gross interest.
The extra interest you could have earned by snubbing your high street provider means you could buy a new iPhone 8 – plus have money left over for turkey and all the trimmings – as opposed to just about having enough for the Christmas pudding alone.
If you have missed out on free money over the last year, all is not lost. Start 2018 as you mean to go on.
Rates are better now than they were 12 months ago. If you were to choose a 1 year fixed rate bond today, you could earn 1.87% which will give you £1,589.50 gross when it matures next year.
Check out the Best Buy Tables to see what you could earn on maturity next year.
Sign up to our free Rate Tracker service, add your accounts and then log in each month for a quick and easy way of checking if your variable rate accounts are still the best and if not where the best rates can be found for you to switch to.
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