Keep an interest in your bank accounts

IT LOOKS as though loyalty to our banks, coupled with a bit of laziness, could be collectively costing us billions of pounds each year because of money that we’re leaving lying around in accounts that are paying little or no interest.

Interest rates are low, we all know that, and so many of us think that it’s not worth the hassle of switching our money from the account it’s in to another one that might only be paying marginally more to us every month or year.

But I can assure you that it is really worth the time and effort.

Every extra pound that you earn in interest is another pound that you can spend some time down the line, and surely that money is better in your hands than your bank’s?

Low interest rates is the most common reason that savers give for not shopping around to look for a better home for their money.

Another reason is that some of the banks offering better rates are newer banks that savers might not have heard of and so we might be a bit more wary of giving them our money. We need to remember that all banks are regulated in the same way and follow the same rules, and your money is just as safe, and protected within limits, in one bank as in another.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that sometimes accounts that have held our money for a longer period of time are the ones where interest rates are reduced more often.

This means you could be suffering even more if you don’t look to switch money out of these accounts.

Unbelievably many of us still hold significant amounts of money in current accounts that pay no interest at all, and there really is no excuse for that.

Work out how much you spend every month and then transfer any positive balance to a savings account at the end of the month.

Better still, ask your bank to do it for you.

There are lots of accounts where any positive balance is transferred from your current account to a savings account with the bank at the end of every month.