Premium Bonds - Not a bean for months now!!!!

[43034]

I'm looking at moving my emergency fund from a Marcus account in to Premium Bonds. The idea of my emergency fund being that I have 6 months expenses on tap should I require. With that in mind, can anyone let me know the withdrawal time? If it takes say a month for money to reach my acc, I will only deposit 5months worth and so on.

Thanks in advance

[Honk]

About a day or two. IIRC they advise 5 days max.

[chazwozza]

Folks, if you don't have a PB account, can you open one up straight away with the full £50k? Hoping to do so before 1st Dec to qualify for the Jan draw... for the missus not me, although will max my account for time being as well.
Thanks in advance

Chazwozza

[webstercivet]

Yes.

[emicen]

chazwozza said:

Folks, if you don't have a PB account, can you open one up straight away with the full £50k? Hoping to do so before 1st Dec to qualify for the Jan draw... for the missus not me, although will max my account for time being as well.
Thanks in advance

Chazwozza

You can but you would want to get a wriggle on with doing it as they can need additional checks opening accounts which slow things down.

Mine was pretty much instant but I only opened it with fifty quid not fifty k

[43034]

Honk said:

About a day or two. IIRC they advise 5 days max.

Cheers

[Mr Whippy]

Let’s say hypothetically you have £100k to invest for 3-12 months but need relatively instant access.

His and hers PB accounts?

But going on MSE it seems like their probability calculator suggests not having £50,000 in there, and using something like £35,000 each might be better for ROI?

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/premium-...


Given the rates everywhere are sooo low it makes a lot of difference to optimise for these probabilities I think?

Or am I doing something wrong with the calculator?


£50,000 1yr ~ £500
£35,000 1yr ~ £450


I’d be for the off chance of a big win offsetting these issues though, as the chance of the bigger wins scale linearly with amount infested it seems.

[Rob_125]

Not sure what is going on with that calc. But with PB, the larger the holding the larger the probability that you will 'win'. Equally there is no guarantee you will see a return.

[number2]

Certainty of naff all interest in an instant access savings account vs. likelihood of naff all and a gamble on winning something.

I'd go PB £50k x2 for the off-chance of winning something , there's naff all interest to be worried about missing out on over a year in a savings account.

Your call though. Depends how much the certainty of x% x £100k over a few months matters to you.

[webstercivet]

The MSE calculator does a lot of rounding, I wouldn’t read too much into the 450 vs 500 difference. In general, more bonds means more chance of winning so your expected return (assuming median luckiness) gets closer to the 1% advertised prize rate.

[AndyAudi]

emicen said:

chazwozza said:

Folks, if you don't have a PB account, can you open one up straight away with the full £50k? Hoping to do so before 1st Dec to qualify for the Jan draw... for the missus not me, although will max my account for time being as well.
Thanks in advance

Chazwozza

You can but you would want to get a wriggle on with doing it as they can need additional checks opening accounts which slow things down.

Mine was pretty much instant but I only opened it with fifty quid not fifty k

I was amazed setting new accounts up for family £50k, instant & no additional checks

[Mr Whippy]

webstercivet said:

The MSE calculator does a lot of rounding, I wouldn’t read too much into the 450 vs 500 difference. In general, more bonds means more chance of winning so your expected return (assuming median luckiness) gets closer to the 1% advertised prize rate.

I thought that, but when you read about the MSE calculator and how they created it, it does mention some oddities in probabilities simply due to the way the number of bonds are bought in batches of 25, and the prize amount stratification and some numbers being provided (ie 2 x £1mill amounts), and then others being the remainder amounts at certain levels...

In any case, for me the £100 here or there would be irrelevant at this level primarily because the calculator still shows a linear improvement in odds for the big prizes which is what it'd be all about for me.

In my case, it'd be a short-term 'resting' place for the funds with a potential of a decent windfall.

[LeadFarmer]

AndyAudi said:

emicen said:

chazwozza said:

Folks, if you don't have a PB account, can you open one up straight away with the full £50k? Hoping to do so before 1st Dec to qualify for the Jan draw... for the missus not me, although will max my account for time being as well.
Thanks in advance

Chazwozza

You can but you would want to get a wriggle on with doing it as they can need additional checks opening accounts which slow things down.

Mine was pretty much instant but I only opened it with fifty quid not fifty k

I was amazed setting new accounts up for family £50k, instant & no additional checks

I've purchased some more Premium Bonds last night online, but I messed up. I assumed a bank transfer straight to NS&I would be instant, meaning that they would sit for the full month of December and get entered into Januarys draw. Sadly I was wrong, they tell me that a bank transfer takes up to three working days, so won't be with them until Wednesday, so won't be active until the February draw.

Had I done it using my debit card then it would have been instant, qualifying for the January draw.

I've got some more to buy tomorrow so I'll be using my debit card. Shame their website doesn't give any clue to this,

[Mr Whippy]

It’s a bit variable on timings.

I sent some money on Friday morning and it cleared this morning. 10am nope, 11am there.

You might be lucky

[loskie]

Full 50k

won £100 this month as a single prize, first time it's been a prize other than multiples of £25

£750 in total in 2020 on £50k

1.5% by my simple arithmetic.

[MrOrange]

Zero on £50k for me, Wifey won £25 on the same size holding. That's crap, average of less than 0.5% per annum on a 100k holding.

[dreamcracker]

£25 on 50k

[mike74]

f'kall for me this month,

£575 for the year giving me an underwhelming 1.15%

[Dave.]

£25 for me, nowt for her. Poor end to the year.

£700 over the year for me on £50k.

[2 GKC]

£25 on £50k.