About interest?

At the moment with interest rates so low it is difficult to find a good rate of interest on savings. Isa's will allow you to save a fixed amount tax free per year, If you open a current account with Santander they have a savings plan that you can only have for 1yr but pays 3% and you can only pay a max of £200 per month into it, it is one of the better deals I have found, and if you want to draw your money out you can with no fee , but you would lose interest as it is paid at the end of the year term., You could try talking to a financal adviser who would have access to better options maybe

What's the interest rate on your savings account, and how often does the bank pay it? That could be only every year.

"Good interest" really doesn't exist these days. Since the banking crisis of 2008, interest rates have been very low. If you can find an instant access savings account or ISA that pays 1%, I'd call that bloody good! I'm 51 and I remember when you could get a lot more but those days are gone, at least for now.

If your account is Yorkshire Bank Instant Savings, the interest rate is 0.01%. That's nothing. I mean, if you leave £3,000 in there for a year, your interest will be 30p at the end of the year. And if you keep taking money out, you only get interest for the days the money is actually there.

My Mum has one at the same interest rate with Santander and we laugh about how much it pays! She only keeps it because her state pension goes into it every month like your money does on pay day, and she doesn't want the fiddle of changing. She doesn't really spend it because she has a good company pension (Dad died years ago so it includes a widow's pension of half of what his would have been and that all goes into her current account), so she lets the money build up there until she can stash it somewhere else. And then she asks her accountant son (me!) about where to put it.

LOL I'm not a financial adviser, I'm just a trained accountant, they're very different things, but she trusts me to know what I'm talking about. Or at least if I'm along to play sidekick, she feels happier she won't get bamboozled!

In fact we did that last week. It had built up to several thousand pounds and I found an ISA for her to put it in. That was with Virgin, it pays 1.75%, but to get that she had to sign up to leave the money there for 5 years.

And that's the thing - to get more interest, you have to accept more restrictions. Mum is OK with not being able to touch that amount for 5 years. She's 78 and has a lifetime of savings in other places, some she can get at a lot quicker if she needs to. I have a couple of accounts I can't get at until a few years' time. But I bet it wouldn't be right for you. You want something that is "instant access" or "easy access".

I keep saying ISA. The thing with an Individual Savings Account is that the interest is tax-free. But the first £1,000 of interest you get on any other account is also tax-free (a change that was made last year), so ignore it. Look at the actual conditions of the account - if you can put money into this account, can you take it out when you want? Until you have a good amount built up you can lock away, don't open anything with restrictions on when you can take it out. The usual advice is to have 3 months' pay saved up you can immediately get at if you need it. Then you have an emergency fund if you lose your job.

A Help to Buy account is a kind of ISA, and it certainly does pay the best interest. Yorkshire Bank has one http://www.ybonline.co.uk/personal/savings/tax-eff... and it pays 1.5% Other banks pay better so look around on moneysupermarket.com. Help to Buy is only for buying a house, not a car, and you will need to look into the specific conditions. It's easy to open one. Just ask Yorkshire Bank, or any other bank you find on moneysupermarket that looks like paying more. The thing with a Help to Buy ISA is that if you use it to help pay for a house, the government gives you a good extra bonus, and that's worth having.

But can you take money out if you need it for other things? You'll have to read up on that.

The latest proposal is that Help to Buy ISAs will be replaced by Lifetime ISAs, which can go towards a house OR retirement. I don't think any of those exist yet because the banks are still working out with the government exactly how they're supposed to work. Just something for you to watch out for.

If you find a bank with an account that looks good, always make an appointment because if you just go into the bank, they might not have anyone ready to spend some time with you. Mum and I have been caught out with this a couple of times! So always ring to make an appointment and then there will be someone you can talk it all through with.

a savings account does depend on how much you have in it and usually is not one to be accessed except in emergencies, they also normally of recent years do not pay well

once you transfer to your savings account leave it alone, hopefully it will grow if not, find someplace that will pay better

Your not going to make much from a savings account with 3000 dollars, maybe 3 percent a month. A Roth IRA would be a good investment but your return will not be available till you turn 59.

Savings accounts pay sod all interest at the moment.

Put your money into an ISA. and do not touch it. "borrowing" from your savings is never a good idea.

I found the system of bank interests in UK extremely complicated, compared to France. You have to look at the rates offered by every bank and read the small lines of the contracts each time to determines what triggers the payment of interests, and there is the fact that most of the interests are paid on the checking account with aggressive marketing mechanisms to attract new costumers. That's a mess.

But there is a semi-standardised system which is ISA. Although a Cash ISA typically gives a very low interest rate with rather strong constraints, and I think it's mostly a tool for the tax avoidance of the middle-class.

in this day and age, there is no such thing as "good interest" and there won't be until Bank of England gets rates back up into the pre 2008 range

Savings account interest isn't going to help you much. The interest rates on savings accounts are very low, on 3000 your monthly interest earnings will be something along the lines of 10p

Interest rates are at historic lows. There are no bank accounts that pay high interest.

If you want your money to do more for you, you'll have to look at other ways of investing it. You'll need to evaluate your time horizon, risk tolerance, etc. before choosing an investment.