Savings and laziness

Hello,

In February me and my girlfriend plan on saving for a mortgage. We can save 100 Euro each a week, so 800 a month.

I have a AIB account, she has BoI. We were planning on opening a Ulster bank savings account since they have the best rates at the moment. The problem is the closest branch is a 30 minute drive away through backroads, while we have both of our own branches in our village.

In anyones personal experience, is it worth us making that effort to have a standing order into a joint savings account for the sake of an extra 80 Euro or more in interest for the sake of organizing our finances, or would the convenience of having our banks so local and having separate savings account be better?

Lastly, I have around 1000 in my local CU. I have no plans on getting a loan of any kind. My dividend was 0.25% this year. With this in mind, am I right to assume its pointless having money in the CU?

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Kai.

In my experience having your savings relatively inaccessible is a bonus.
However with internet banking...they are always accessible...unfortunately!

Firstly, get your money out of the CU, 0.25% is an awfull rate of return on your money.

What banks have branches in your town?

Yes having the savings half an hour drive away is a good idea. However, the rates and accounts do change so chances are you may move your savings anyway in a few months time or whatever.

If you are planning to stay together long term (obviously!) then at some stage you will need a joint account anyway.
If you open a joint account, get two Laser cards and then pay for all household bills, rent, large food shops etc out of that - syphon a percentage of each person's pay into it while each keeping your own accounts for spending money.

That'll also help you to see how much you spend on household stuff, rather than having one person pay the rent and the other the bills type of arrangement.

CiaranT said:

Firstly, get your money out of the CU, 0.25% is an awfull rate of return on your money.

What banks have branches in your town?

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AIB and BoI. My account if AIB and her's is BoI.

sadie said:

Yes having the savings half an hour drive away is a good idea. However, the rates and accounts do change so chances are you may move your savings anyway in a few months time or whatever.

If you are planning to stay together long term (obviously!) then at some stage you will need a joint account anyway.
If you open a joint account, get two Laser cards and then pay for all household bills, rent, large food shops etc out of that - syphon a percentage of each person's pay into it while each keeping your own accounts for spending money.

That'll also help you to see how much you spend on household stuff, rather than having one person pay the rent and the other the bills type of arrangement.

Click to expand...

We share the rent, and I pay for car insurance, electric and phone/broadband/tv. She pays the gas and was paying off a large loan until last week.

Since we recently became debt free, I think we will have a joint current account for all our bills, and a joint savings account. Hopefully we can open a Ulster savings account and setting up a standing order with our own banks rather then having to open a joint ulster current account, set up a standing order to that to have a standing order to our savings lol.

If we can access and move money from the savings account to our own from just online, that would be a massive bonus. I guess these questions are for the bank though.

Kai.

In the present economic climate, I would not consider a Credit Union Dividend of .25% to be "an awful rate of return" for a demand account in the region of €1k.
Consider the long term benefits of yr CU membership. Unlike other financial institutions Most Cr Unions are open for business and accepting loan applications.

Kai123 - UB would let you set up a standing order and also provide you with online access.

Copper Beach said:

In the present economic climate, I would not consider a Credit Union Dividend of .25% to be "an awful rate of return" for a demand account in the region of €1k.

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Getting paid a quarter of one percent on annual basis, when other accounts pay up to 3.6%, surely is a very poor return.

Yes on the face of it , a quarter of 1% is a bad return but in this case we are looking at a Demand Savings account with a balance in the region of one thousand Euro .
To get a higher return in the region of 3.6% you would have to leave for a Fixed Term and usually a minimum deposit amount

I would recommend online banking - we do it with the Ulster Bank, including regular savings accounts, joint account and personal account. So easy to check on things, manage things and cancel things if necessary (I've been robbed in Spain last month, really easy to cancel all card stuff using Internet details). Also nice to be able to look at your statement of account any time you want. So, in preparation for the big day, can I suggest that you
1) Set up a joint account for all agreed joint spendings
2) Set up individual accounts for personal stuff (you need to pay for pressies out of your own accounts!)
3) Set up a regular saver account each - very important to have sole access to savings until the marriage ceremony is complete!

Good luck

Copper Beach said:

Yes on the face of it , a quarter of 1% is a bad return but in this case we are looking at a Demand Savings account with a balance in the region of one thousand Euro .
To get a higher return in the region of 3.6% you would have to leave for a Fixed Term and usually a minimum deposit amount

Click to expand...

You can get up to 3.25% with an instant access account. Still a lot more than a quarter of one percent or zero in many CU cases.