Premium bonds - when do they update the "have you won" stuff

I've just wondered and asked the same question. The nice lady I spoke to said the draw is done on the first working day of the month, then the holder prize number-checker info is updated the following day, or maybe the next day...

HTH

Allan

PS: I see their press release section is a bit up the creek at the mo as well:

You can't at present see releases for 2010 (but you can see releases for 2011, and 2009 and before): oops!

Funny, that, it's now been amended and you can see all of them.

Ahh, that page has now been updated - it now says "Higher value winners for January 2011" but the list of winners is identical.

So someone in Reading was very lucky - a 25GBP prize in Dec that was reinvested has won them 10K in Jan.

I don't live in Reading :-(

Tim.

Move.

But not to Reading.

Glad that point has been raised as I just rechecked to find myself a winner of two £25 prizes for January. That's now £875 since July 2008 from my £20K. John

£23k invested in time for November 2010 draw, 4 x £25 prizes from the three draws hence.

Anyone want to tell me how I'm doing? I have no idea, incidentally, of what I could realise by shoving £23k into a savings account of some sort.

reckon that Premium Bonds are not a very good way to invest your money.

This web site is a wealth of information about what wins you can expect, and compares Premium Bonds with sticking you money in a bank. It's obvious that, on average, PBs give a very poor return.

They should be compared with using the interest from a normal account to

buy national lottery tickets, rather than directly with normal accounts.

The tax free basis favours higher rate payers and that may be deliberate. With the normal account you are likely to have to continuously review the account and move your money to maintain the interest rate.

[I've removed the session tracking sort-of-cookie from your URL.]

It's not that bad on average for a higher rate taxpayer that has already used up their ISA allowance.

They can also be a good way to save up for something - for example if someone is going to need a new car in a years time then putting 500 per month into premium bonds can be a good way to save. It's almost instant access but not to the point where you can spend the money on your debit card Saturday and then quickly transfer the money in before getting bank charges.

I was using them to save for index linked savings certs (which didn't work out too well :-( )

They also always tend to have a "reasonable" rate of return. Almost any other savings account the return often ends up close to zero. It's very hard to find out what rate you're really getting and a lot of effort to move money around, especially if you have to be careful about limits.

Calculated from the date of the first draw my bonds were entered into I'm currently averaging 3.02% equivalent (i.e. what I would have to get to make the same return after tax) and calculated from the day the money was invested I'm running at 2.23%

That's far better than the 0.25% I realized my cash ISA was getting for a year.

I'd like to see it made compulsory for all accounts to display the current rate of interest they are receiving on all statements - online or paper on the same screen as the balance is displayed.

For example: This month you will receive 0.75% interest on your balance (bonus may be applied in the future)

Or maybe "This month you will receive 2.75% (*inc bonus) on your balance.

• See terms and conditions (which should be linked)

Tim.