So, we recently moved from having cash, to not having cash (bought a house) and as such had to re-align our priorities for banking:
When we still had cash we had mostly accounts that paid interest. Now we have mostly accounts that pay cashback.
When we first started out looking for new bank accounts I was hesitant: Surely, there can’t be enough money in it, to make it worthwhile? When we then made the calculations we still couldn’t quite believe it, but we now make over £30 per month in cashback (after fees), without significant ongoing effort.
This was important for us: We didn’t want to scour cash back sites for every shop, always think about which card to use where, etc., all just to make a few extra quid. That wasn’t worth the effort for us: After initial setup (i.e. account applications and setting up Standing Orders between accounts) the thing should mostly run itself.
The only change in behaviour for us was that instead of using debit cards for our spending, we now use our cashback credit card in supermarkets, and Curve almost everywhere else, and this is the result: 3 current accounts + 2 spending cards.
| Account/Product | Montly fee | Conditions | Cashback | Assumed monthly spend | Monthly cashback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barclays Blue Rewards | £3.00 | - | £7.00 for 2 DD £5.00 for Mortage £3.00 for home insurance |
(DD and mortage rewards only, as home insurance is elsewhere) | £12.00 |
| NatWest Reward Account | £2.00 | min income: £1,500 | 2% for select DD | £70 Gas & El £170 Council Tax £30 Water £50 phone/broadband/TV £30 mobile |
£7.00 |
| Coop Everyday Rewards | £0.00 | 4 DD, min income: £800 |
£4 + 5p per debit card transaction | - | £4.00 |
| NatWest Reward Credit Card | £0.00 (see below) | - | 1% at supermarket 0.5% elsewhere |
£800 at supermarket £400 elsewhere |
£10 |
| Curve | £0.00 | - | It’s comlicated | (figure is our average actual cashback over the last months, minus sign up bonus) | £4.00 |
| Total | £5.00 | £37.00 |
Net annual cashback: £384
Notes:
- While there are no conditions for Barclays Blue Rewards per se, they obviously only make sense if you earn enough cashback to offset the fee.
- Some of these are quite specific to ourselves (not everyone has a mortgage with Barclays, 11 DDs, etc). For others there may be better options out there (e.g. AmEx generally pays higher cashback, Santander may pay higher cashback than NatWest depending on your specific bills, etc.), so this isn’t a case of one size fits all.
- The NatWest Reward Credit Card usually has a £24pa fee, but that is waived if you also hold the NatWest Reward Account.
- The assumed spend up there isn’t quite our actual spend (don’t feel comfortable detailing our entire finances on the internet), but the cashback to the right is approximately the actual cashback we have earned monthly (on average) over the last few months.
if monzo don’t think it’s a good fit for their forum, and want to delete it, that’s also fine