I've been toying with buying a bunch of premium bonds, no interest on bonds bought but not a lot from banks either so not a great deal to loose and the small possibility of winning something perhaps, any thoughts ?
Ive got just £100 worth .
Ive had them for about 15 (maybe more) years. In that time Ive won? £25!
What Ive read online etc though, seems to suggest, that the more you have ...the more chance you have of winning.!
My neighbour (now deceased) had quite a lot (Im not sure how many), and he seemed to win something pretty often.
As you say, the interest rates these days are naff.........so probably worth a punt!
Waste of time - poor returns.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
£100 at 1.5% for 15 years = £125
I've invested a fair amount in these. Not huge returns, but a prize most months, safe as houses, easy access to the cash, and always a chance you will get a decent sized win... Gains all tax free as well I believe. :-)
A
Very popular in the 1960s
I've had a few in the past so from experience expect easy access to your money & 1.5% return, anything more than that is a bonus.
Good summary here:
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/sa...premium-bonds/
A good home for cash that you might want to get your hands on quickly. Average returns are around 1.5%......but you’ve always got a chance of a decent win. Makes more sense than wasting money on lottery tickets every week IMO.
Good idea if you’re self employed, i put in my money that will eventually be used to pay the tax bill.
+1Originally Posted by walkerwek1958
Same as that really, £1600 last year, and always the chance of a big win.
Don’t count on being able to get your money out quickly.
I had a heck of a job withdrawing my cash when I needed it. The online withdrawal wouldn’t work and froze the account, and the telephone service wouldn’t help until the account unfroze after a few days had passed.
I wouldn’t buy again. Not worth the aggro for a modest return. You are unlikely to actually get 1.5%.
For a bit of fun and as an experiment i maxed out on PB`s last year.
Interest rates on regular ISAS etc are so poor i though why not..
On my first draw five of my bonds came in netting me 125 quid - i was impressed and hopeful of regular winnings of similar amounts to come!
Over the next few months draws i didn`t quite have the same luck but have had two 100 pound months and several 25 to 75 wins,too.
There`s only been one draw when my numbers did not come up, and the crushing disappointment was devastating - i quite look forward to checking each month as there`s always the chance of a `biggie`...
After 7 months i`ve already won more than i would of earnt with interest in an average high-street saver type account for a year.
They`re probably not the best solution to long-term financial planning but for a bit of fun they`re ideal.
Last edited by E_2_Right-Force; 13th January 2019 at 12:19. Reason: i edited it
They’re also a handy place to put chunks of money that you don’t want to spend
We had a similar experience to the poster above when we sold a house and had a 9 month wait before needing the cash again. Wife and I maxed them out and had between £25 and £75 most months (each) with one or two months each where nothing was won.
On average I think we did slightly better than the 1.5% average. Took 3 days to get the cash back out. We have both left all of our “winnings” in, just in case we bag the big one!
How do you leave the winnings in if you’ve maxed them out?
https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...um-Bonds/page2
Not sure I've copied this correctly but worth a read. I started the thread when I had £125k invested for 6 months we got back £175 every month.
We now have a decreasing amount as we renovate a house smaller amounts certainly produce smaller returns but least it only takes 3 days to get your money back.
I so wanted a decent win to prove Chris in the UK wrong but alas it didn't happen so his very pessimistic view was correct.
Absolutely. I have done similarly in the past with tax-money in dispute with HMRC.
I’ve had good years and poor years (even allowing for the fact that wins don’t go by callendar years) - so there will be those owners who have poor returns and those with good returns.
I don’t think it is valid to say: “You get a poor return on your investment”. You may, you may not.
I got 3% return on mine last year and being as that's tax-free, it's a damned site more than I would have got from the bank.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
I’m amazed people get anything when they’ve got a few hundred, I had £20k’s worth a few years back and I would get one ‘win’ a month (think one month I got two). Think at the time it worked out about the same as a savings account.
Pretty sure they upped it to £30k a while back.
It's been upped to 50k now
Thought the max allowed was £50k each?
I keep a few grand in them…. Easy to access…. Got £300 once, so, already paid for themselves!
Zero (nearly!) point in keeping them in a savings account
Not had an issue in 18 years.
Submitted online app last Thurs 3.00pm to withdraw money for tax bill.
In my current a/c Sat morning 10.00am.
(Don't know exact time it hit a/c)
I like them.
Investing is my hobby but my mrs and I have a fair bit in premium bonds as well in case we ever need ready cash.
It's a bit of fun, like the lottery but you can get your money back if you don't win!
Most I've won in one prize is a £1000 but we get some prizes every month.
Cheers,
Neil.
Do you think the prizes are equal to a decent % rate? I'd want at least 4 or 5% percent I think.
Where do you get 4 or 5% with ready access to your money?
Do you automatically get informed if you win or do you have to check yourself?
I have had a few thousand for around 10 years and haven’t won any amount ( as far as I know, never checked).
For any members domiciled in the Isle of Man or Channel Islands it’s worth mentioning that, like other National Savings products, they qualify as excluded property and so are a UK investment that isn’t subject to inheritance tax.
With a decent self investing stocks and shares ISA, as long as you're doing well anyway.
They should tell you - assuming they have current contact details, obviously! Give them a bell. They were helpful when I wanted to re-establish contact with a handful of PBs I had from childhood.
They send you an email when you have a win. You can easily check yourself with the phone app. Results are usually available to the app on the 3rd of the month.
https://www.nsandi.com/prize-checker-app
I wouldn't hold them as a long term investment, but for near term savings when you need fast access (like 48 hours) then they are as good as most bank savings accounts, just that you have a change of a bigger win skewing your interest higher. Thats how I use them anyway, and during the course of a year probably have £20-40k in them. Probably avg 1-2% over a year in wins, tax free and there is always the small chance of a £5k or £50k or £100k win etc :)
they can be managed completely online and its really fast service to cash them in at anytime.....
We’ve got just over £30k in them at the moment and this month did better than most with three £25 prizes. Had nothing the month before. As said, it’s short term money with a bit of fun, a chance of a big prize and quick to cash in when you need it. Best we ever had in one month was three £25 prizes and one £100 prize.
No harm putting some of your savings in premium bonds. You can get hold of the money fairly quickly and stand a (small) chance of winning a decent prize. From memory the stated dividend pool is now only about 0.7% and that is skewed by the larger payouts.
Given you can only get about 1.8% through annual fixed rate deposits at the moment you aren't losing much if you don't win anything. But you're also not risking your capital and for instance I'd take premium bonds over a FTSE 100 tracker all day long looking at the outlook for the next 12 months.
Any winnings are also tax free.
Thanks for your thoughts everyone so basically nothing to loose so might as well have a dabble.
The only risk is your savings most likely won’t even keep with inflation.
Thanks - not sure where I got 0.7% from as just checked and they were 1.15% until Dec 17 when they increased to 1.4%
That's obviously the average though which is skewed by larger payouts. I haven't checked to see what precise return we have achieved through prizes but it's noticeable that our larger blocks of bond purchases win a lot more often pro-rata than smaller blocks.
Is there a risk free way of keeping up with inflation?
Indeed, difficult to evaluate even if you're a "LSE professor of financial mathematics" apparently - https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/sa...-bonds/#tips-5
Well there are regular savers and current accounts that pay interest above current inflation rates, depends how much £ you are looking at trying to protect, and it’s a bit of a juggle.
Great article - further evidence that you can prove anything with statistics!
If memory serves, classic investment theory is that gilts are the risk-free investment. Gilt yields aren’t close to current CPI never mind RPI.
https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/ra...nment-bonds/uk
I still get my wins posted to me old school fashion.
Always nice to see a couple of envelopes on the doormat and the thrill of opening them.
Cheers,
Neil.
There's the rub!
I invest monthly into equity ISA's but would be very wary about a lump sum at the moment whereas with PB's there's no worry about market timing of investment or withdrawal.
Equities will probably outdo PB's in the long term but for lump sums that may be needed at short notice there are not much better than PB's IMO.
Cheers,
Neil.
I can well remember, before opting to have my winnings automatically paid into the bank, the cheques all arriving together in the same delivery on the same day - each in their own envelope. I often wondered about the nature of their commercial agreement with the royal mail.
You are certain to have won something in that time. If you have changed your address/email address you may not be getting notifications.
I had a few thousand pounds worth, a few years and didn't get any returns.
Last edited by dickdutch; 18th January 2019 at 20:03.
Thanks, have contacted and added new address, own 2k for 7 years and have won £75 in that time.
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