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Check your savings accounts right now as you could be missing out
With interest rates rising, you should go and check your savings accounts right now and swap them over to higher interest accounts, even if it’s with the same bank.
Let me give you a few real examples from high street banks.
Nationwide – old Regular Savings account paying 0.3% interest. Change it up to a limited access – three withdrawals a year up to 2.10%. If you need instant access, then even moving to the 0.5% Instant Access Saver Issue 11 is better.
Lloyds – The Club Lloyds Monthly Saver is only available to Club Lloyds current account holders and you can earn a whopping 5.25% gross interest. You can save between £25 – £400 every month by one standing order. No restrictions on withdrawals, but you have to have a current account with them. …
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Have people stopped saving?
This was the topic of a session at finance bloggers event The Shomos a couple of weeks ago. A panel discussion included a representative from James from Vanguard, Mike from 7 Circles, Mrs Mummypenny, Lynne James and Faith Archer from Much more with Less.
Scarely, 1/4 of adults have less than £100 savings, unlike most money bloggers who have emergency fund, pensions and some have stocks and shares.
The reasons why people are not saving include poor interest rates, the global financial crisis and some debt that needs to be paid off, which takes priority.
The chap from Vanguard tried to offer an alternative, but said that barriers to entry to saving via investing include perceived complexity and the cost of investment. Vanguard offers index trackers and wants to lower the …
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Cost of raising girls higher than raising boys
New research and analysis into the cost of families from Sainsbury’s Bank has found that some children come with a heftier price tag than others. Parents of children under the age of 18 estimated that a daughter is more costly to raise than a son, across all age points(1).
The survey, which was conducted for the bank’s second Family Finance Report launched today, suggests that it is around £300 a year more expensive to raise a girl at ages 0-5; around £400 a year more at 6-13 years-old and around £600 a year more at 14-18.
Average cost of raising a child by gender and age group, 2016
Age Cost of Son Cost of Daughter 0-5 £5,475 £5,767 6-13 £6,414 £6,794 14-18 £7,172 £7,747The reasons for this may be varied but government data …
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A cashback site that helps you save for your kids
So today, I heard about KidStart – a free shopping club for families that enables you to save money for your kids while you shop.
It’s a bit like a rewards card or a cashback site, but across thousands of retailers – a lot of which you probably already shop at – Amazon, John Lewis, Achica, Boots, M&S, Ebay, Argos, Next, Waitrose, Saindsbury’s etc – and you get actual money rather than points.
KidStart is a similar service to TopCashback and Quidco, the difference is that it is all about saving for your children rather than just ‘cash back’, which has benefits…it means that the service is able to work with different retailers who are less keen to work with ‘cash back’ companies. Partners such as John Lewis, Amazon, eBay, Waitrose and Sainsburys are working …
