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6 hours ago, letsavagoo said:

I've just been informed that my bank is reducing the interest rate on my savings account from 0.2% to 0.1%. Don't know how I'm going to manage. 

Have you looked at on-line accounts letsavagoo?  We’ve stuck with Virgin Money since they took over Northern Rock.  We were brave when Northern Rock collapsed and kept our savings with them and did get rewarded for our ‘loyalty’. Getting 1.49% and 1.45% on two different easy access accounts, both with a limit of 2 withdrawals a year though.  Those rates are still terrible but better than most. 

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The reason I mentioned Saga is because I had an online Savings Account with them and they recently announced they were going to reduces the interest by that same percentage.

 

So I looked at a comparison site for Savings Accounts and found one of the best was another Saga account paying 1.4%.

 

So I transferred everything from Saga to Saga. Interesting that Saga themselves didn't point me in that direction.

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I was going to suggest Premium Bonds for the same reasons given above.  It's fractionally better than a piggy bank...

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If you want a long(ish) term investment, why not precious metals? Most people think of gold or silver but there is platinum, palladium and rhodium which are sold for investment purposes.

 

A couple of years ago (on my last UK visit) I bought some small amounts of several precious metals in the hope that they would provide some sort of income better than banks would offer.

 

Palladium was bought at £900/ounce, rhodium about the same (both of these are rounded). Today's price for palladium is £1, 948.44/ounce and rhodium is £6,290.00/ounce - see the website https://www.bairdmint.com/

 

Obviously I am unable to predict the future trends in metals prices but it could be well worth your while. You can buy less than one ounce amounts.

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That use of palladium was what first gave me the idea about the investment. My palladium, though, is in the form of small minted bars as there isn't much of the metal in each catalytic converter. Simlarly with rhodium - which is even rarer but it has more uses.

 

I did buy some gold bars and coins. These haven't increased in value nearly so much but, considerably more so than anything offered by more conventional savings methods.

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Gold is still the most attractive investment because it's free from VAT when you buy it.

Other precious metals such as silver, platinum and palladium all attract VAT.

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Living where I do, I am exempt from UK TVA . I do see your point but, the return I made on other metals would have greatly reduced the impact of that even over there.

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