premium Bonds...

mr cat

mr cat

Member of the month
Joined
Jul 31, 2003
Messages
3,375
Reaction score
5
hi, I've just bought some of these - 100 quids worth and will most likely be continuing to buy a 100 quids worth every month...

anyone else got em'..? - if so, what do you think..??

I'll post if I win...except maybe if I win a million - I'll be off on holiday...!! :D
 
My goodness, do they still have them? I remember my folks having them in the 1950s and 1960s. I never liked the idea of all the interest going into a pot for prizes, because the odds were against my ever winning anything substantial. I'd rather have something where I get the interest. It really comes down to whether or not you're a gambler - I'm not. But, as they say Downunder (the world's most inveterate gamblers), you gotta be in it to win it.
 
yeah, i've a savings account too (ing Direct) - just thought I've give it a go...tho, at least with this gamble the only money I'll lose is the interest that I could have gained on a savings account...!!

they've also got a fairly big advertising campaign on TV just now too..!
 
Two of my nippers have £100 worth each (gift from an aunt) both won within a year (£50 each I think) - one twice (another £50). Cant beat 100% returns in one year :)
 
mr cat said:
hi, I've just bought some of these - 100 quids worth and will most likely be continuing to buy a 100 quids worth every month...

anyone else got em'..? - if so, what do you think..??

I'll post if I win...except maybe if I win a million - I'll be off on holiday...!! :D
Click to expand...
a lot of self employed people have what was the full allowance (recently made unlimited I think) of about £22k worth as a fun way of holding their tax payment reserve before it goes to the IR. I've still got mine and I get a lousy return of maybe £300 a year, admittedly tax free. I've never won more than £100 in one go. I can't bring myself to give them up though because something tells me if I did, I would have won the million the next week....
 
With the interest rates being so feeble now, I can't see Premium Bonds are THAT bad a deal when you consider you COULD win...

I'm tempted to go for one £100 stake instead of entrusting it to my Building Society (no surprise that those words initialise to "BS" when their interest rate is a paltry 3%ish ;))
 
I saw the add on TV then went to look at the website. But still a little confused how these work, ie, how do you know how much you "hold" ? do you get statements, where exactly is the money, its not like a regular bank account I guess, so how do you get hold of ya cash, but I am interested in them they seem a good idea, I've got some spare cash that I'd like to invest somewhere this seems like a good place. Mr Cat if you can let me know how its working for you that'll be cool.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
yeah, no probs Ihatkins
you fill in the online form ans if it's your first time they also send you out a form (that you poist back in a prepaid envelope) that you sign, then you have to wait until the next month beofre you're able to win anything...the upper limit is 30k...
then they'll post out the actual bonds (haven't got them yet)...and I think they even inform you if you win!

summary from thei website here (http://www.nsandi.com/products/pb/index.jsp) -
Why choose this product?
If you want an investment which offers the fun and excitement of a chance of a big win.

Who can invest?
Anyone aged 16 or over; can also be bought on behalf of under-16s by parents and grand-parents.

Minimum purchase
£100

Maximum holding
£30,000

Investment term
No set term

Prizes As well as the £1 million jackpot you can win anything from £50 to £100,000 for each Bond number you hold.

Tax status
Tax-free

but on the tv advert that mentions something about 3 and 5 year terms...hmm...can;t find that on the website so far...
 
I've had about £100s worth all my life and have never seen a penny. Don't know what thats all about.
 
Well...you might aswell stick 100 notes in it. Not like throwing it away on the lotto and you've got a chance of winning big. You're only missing out on a fiver or so from interest in a savings account!
 
We have the max each[ wifey and me] .....before they introduced the new prize of an extra million....we would expect to get one win per month. After the new prize we have had one win in three months of £50. To give you some idea we had close to £4000 worth of wins last year..... the bigest was one of a thousand, three £250 and four £100 the rest being £50. So thats 44 winning envolopes at an average of nearly four a month. But there were three months with no wins .....so you can see we had bumper months. One intresting thing was that when we had the one big one we got no little ones, now statistically that is very suspicious.....I would not like to say its fixed but.

Its said you need £1500 to expect to get one win per year, thought each one you own has a chance of winning a prize.

Weve had ours for around ten years ....sometimes we have beaten tyhe intrest rate and other [like this year] we will not. On average its been slightly on the plus side...but its great when postie brings in 8 - 9 winning envolopes even if they are all £50's.
 
well, that seems a good return, tho I wish I had 30k spare to invest... ;)
 
Yeah, I bought some just before the end of July but haven't won anything so far. I thought I'd have bought them in time to be entered into the August prize draw but found out subsequently that it takes at least 4 weeks before your aloted draw numbers are fully processed and on the system, so I had to wait until this month (September) before my first prize draw. So, the 1 month delay is something to watch out for in case you weren't aware.

mr cat said:
at least with this gamble the only money I'll lose is the interest that I could have gained on a savings account...!!
Click to expand...
That's exactly how I see it. What with interest rates being so low at the moment in the UK, there's no interest worth having even if you have quite a large (or even not so large) sum of money stashed away in a savings account. I currently have some money in a Sainsburys savings account which was earning 5% (gross AER), and was to my understanding fixed until the end of this year, but they've recently reduced it to 4.75%. :mad: :rolleyes:

PS I typed this reply earlier on this afternoon in notepad but didn't post it so alot of the other replies since then have superceeded what I've said above.

PPS Interesting stats there Zanash, obviously the bigger prize fund has attracted more investors and increased the odds, oh well.
 
The effective (ie money paid out in prizes) interest rate on premium bonds is 3.2%. If you are a 40% tax payer, this is the same as a gross interest rate of 5.33%. This is pretty good against any bs account.

Zanash seems to have got my share of the winnings. £60,000 * 3.2% is £1920, but you won twice that.

If you put the same amount of cash that you had in premium bonds in a bs and took out the interest earned each month and bought lottery tickets with it, surely thats pretty much the same as having premium bonds. I would guess that you are more likely to win with premium bonds, but the prizes are smaller.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Cool thanks Mr Cat, I've signed up for some tonight, hell what the heck, I'd only spend it on something frivolous anyway. Ya check my bank balance and saw I had an interest payment on my high rate account, £3 oh wow that's worth it then for a £5k saving. big deal. ! :)
 

Latest posts

Back
Top