Anyone know much about premium bonds?

Phate

Phate

Phate

Caporegime
Joined
1 Nov 2003
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Lisbon, Portugal
Hai guys,

Are premium bonds worth doing?

From what I gather is for every £1 you have a 1 in 24,000 chance of winning on each monthly draw, so the more you have the higher chance you have in winning each month? And you could win anything from £1 to a million...

Anyone else have premium bonds? do you get money out of it? what's your experience been like? Worth doing? Seems like a good place to stick some spare cash away to...thoughts? :)
 
Hmm interesting stuff....Moses you say other saving products are better in terms of return, care to enlighten me a bit on those? :)

Thanks! :)
 
Not as good as they used to be since they restructured the prize pay outs. I have a few hundred in premium bonds that i have had for 15+ years and only ever won anything twice a relative has the max you can put in and her winnings over the last year have averaged at about the same as she would get on interest having it in a bank, not really worth it imo unless you win one of the big prizes obviously.
 
Right after a bit of resarch last year into all this iv come up with some simple points on savings.

1. ALL savings rates are pants at the moment, the rate of return on anything has plummited over the last few years and hanst looked like improving much.
2. ISA's are only good for the first 5k, even then the 3% (2.5% last year) is not very much on the max amount.
3. Premium Bonds are mainly down to luck.

In reality iv earnt the most from premium bonds over the last 12 months, iv have the max possible in them and made more this year than I would have at 3% interest (best I could find over the course of 2 years this time last year) if it was in a bank, which is strange. Even my mum has won a little and she doesnt have much money in with them. If you treat it as a normal investment it can be hit or miss, but if you treat it as one of a few investments it can be pretty rewarding :)

Oh and all money becomes worth less over time, no matter what you do with it as inflation isnt going up but prices are. Best 2 things to do are rack up a little debt (not thats never a good idea) or buy stuff thats going not drop in value like a stone once you've paied (so not an Alfa Romeo new) as realistically money doesnt seem to work quite as well in the "current economical climate"
 
Here is one possibility - (please note this is silly)

Premium bonds give a theoretical rate of return of 1.5%

If you really want that element of gambling/potentially getting a million then Why not get an ISA paying 3% or whatever... then 'invest' a portion of the interest (say 0.5% on lottery tickets).

You'd have a theoretical return of 2.75%

You'll have in effect structured your own product that not only gives you a (very small) chance to become a millionaire but also gives you a better return than premium bonds...

Simples :D
 
premium bonds are a terrible investment and terrible for savings

buy some silver , its going up like crazy
 
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I have some capital bonds with NSI are paying about 4.65% gross, which isn't too bad, I'm not sure you can get them any more though
 
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