I have been saving my money for some time and I've got £67.23. I keep it in a tin in my bedroom, a friend told me that I'd be better opening a savings account. What would you recommend?
(Female: 13)
Your friend is right. There are several advantages to putting your money in a savings account. These include:-
Additional money (interest) is added to your savings.
Helps you to save your money for something special by making it a bit more difficult to get your hands on the money than simply taking it out of the tin.
Safety and Security
Most of the big banks and building societies run special children’s savings account and some also offer incentives such as CD tokens and newsletters. Because these accounts are designed to start children off in the savings habit, they often pay a higher rate of interest compared to other adult savings accounts. For instance if you kept your £67.23 in a savings account for a whole year at an interest rate of 4.5%, £3.02 would be added to your savings. Normally the higher the interest rate the better, but you also need to look at other things such as how easy will it be and how often will you be allowed to take money out or put more money into your savings account. Some banks may only allow you to take money out a certain number of times during a year, whilst others will allow you to do it whenever you want.
It is simply a matter of shopping around to find the best deal and the account which suits you. You will find that a lot of the big banks and building societies have branches in the high street whilst many banks or building society websites are easy to find – often you can just type www. (the bank’s name).co.uk.
How old do you have to be to get a credit card? (Male: 17)
You have to be 18 or over to apply for a credit card. If you are under 18, it is a criminal offence for anyone to send you material inviting you to borrow money or obtain goods or services on credit or hire purchase.
The Office of Fair Trading Website has lots of useful information about credit cards and other forms of borrowing. Important questions that people should carefully consider before borrowing money are set out on a Government money website.
