Anyone out there have any views or experience? I am wondering what to do with 25k...

Thanks

I thought if you took out the maximum amount of Premium Bonds you were guaranteed to win? The odds of winning a prize is 30000-1, if you put in 30,000 you should win every month? Or is that not how it works?

You're not guaranteed anything, it's complete luck. In the last 12 months my prizes have represented about 7%, so I've been lucky. The real thrill for me is the excitement of winning a million, and keeping my stake of course. I've got about £8k, but I've just started buying an additional £500/month by standing order. I reinvest my win nings in new bonds automatically, and I intend to build up themaximum £30k

Put the lot in the pot. The first year you will do very well.
The majority of the big prizes are won by the big bond holders.
As Del boy says " He who dares wins"

Bought £4k's worth in the summer - nothing yet.

My great gran won 50k jackpot in 1970. Someones gotta win it I suppose.

good luck everyone.

I've held 30k for nearly a year now, I win 50 quid a month, never more, never less.

Yeah I got 30K's worth, I've seemed to average about a prize a month mostly £50 or £100.

The return isn't fantastic, but I'm a 40% tax payer and have maxxed on my ISA....my capital is safe and beats doing the lottery.

Blimey, you could have bought 10 houses for that!

Well, that's that settled then - Premium Bonds it is!!

Thanks to everyone who replied.

It seems (based on my calcs) that after cash isa's, premium bonds are the next best safe bet if you pay 40% tax.

I put £25,000 in a year ago and have had £850 in £50's and one £100 thats nearly 4% net. Its also a bit of fun. More interesting than BS interest and less hassle than tenants.

At the end of November 2003 I invested my £30,000 savings - mortgage
deposit - in Premium Bonds. My aim being to see if I could get a better
'return' from the Bonds than from the interest I was receiving from my
building society.

Buying the Bonds in November meant that I was eligible for draws from
January 1st 2004. So that is £850 for 12 months 'entry' in the Premium Bonds
but technically 13 months of the money not gaining interest in a building
society interest account.

So, November has to be that million pound cheque as it will be a full 12
months since the money was withdrawn from the BS, thereby losing me the
interest, and invested in bonds. OK, a cheque for 5K or 10K will do nicely
:-)

I will now decide what to do over Christmas. My current thinking is to
withdraw the money in the first week of January and put the money into a
savings account where, at least, the interest is guaranteed. I live in South
Wales and it has struck me this year that, as far as I can see, only one
person from South Wales has won a 'decent' prize - 5K - compared to a
ridiculously high number of people in the South East of England winning such
prizes and higher. Yes, admittedly, there are bound to be more bond holders
in the South East due to a mixture of population numbers and wealth but I do
wonder why places like Wales and the North of England do not feature more.
Just an observation.


Winnings so far:

January 2004 1 x £50 cheque
February 2004 1 x £50 cheque
March 2004 3 x £50 cheques (£150)
April 2004 1 x £50 cheque
May 2004 - NOTHING, NOT A JOT
June 2004 - NOTHING, NOT A JOT
July 2004 1 x £50 cheque
August 2004 2 x £50 cheques (£100)
September 2004 3 x £50 cheques (£150)
October 2004 1 x £50 cheque
November 2004 1 x £50 cheque
December 2004 3 x £50 cheque (£150)


A bit peeved that the Jan 2005 million winner purchased his/her bond in June 2004 :-(

Wouldn't you have got about £1,500 by putting it into the highest paying savings account over that period of time?




This, to me, is the major problem with PB's: there is a not-insignificant risk that you will win absolutely nothing and your capital will erode.

Yes, prior to tax. I am down on interest if I had simply left the money in a BS account. I doubt I would have made 1500 before tax but probably 1300.

I am giving it one more month and then thinking of putting the money into a BS.

Mrs C and myself have held the maximum bonds each for the last ten years. Although slightly down we will never cash them in until the cash is needed. Yes some people have been lucky to win the million quickly, but remember bonds are a gamble and your chances are better in the long term. Look at the large prize winners the majority are the big bond holders.

Our return to date around 20k in smaller prizes.
Remember it is the only gambling where you get your stake back.

Check you winnings every month on the third day after the draw.

http://www.nsandi.com/products/pb/haveYouW...veYouWon&view=1

:-( Looks like I have won nothing this month! double :-(

Due to the holiday first draw on 4th. Smaller prizes 1k down will not be drawn until the 3rd day. Try again thursday night.

Your chances are not better in the long term, they're exactly the same as during your first month, you've just played a few more games.
You chances DO go up by having more invested and thus by maxxing out at 30K.

Think of it this way:
£1 = 24,000 to 1 at winning something

£30K = 24,000 to 30,000 chance at winning something. So, very likely win something, you should win 1.25 times a month, or 15 times a year. Which is close to Masked tulip's 17x. UndeservingRich had 18 wins.... Both lucky this year.

So, for each win you have a 1 in 1019098 (in oct 2004) chance at winning the jackpot.
So, in month one, you have as many chances at winning as you do in month 230, because they are unrelated events/draws. The likelyhood is as slim, you've just played a few more rounds.

Per draw/month, your chances are = Attempts.P(Win).P(JackPot)

£1 = 1/ 24 458 352 000 (1/24 billion)
£30000 = 1/ 815 278 (less than 1 in a million), per draw.


Note: national lottery gives you 1/ 282 475 249 (1 in 282 million) at having 6 matches.
Three matches are 1 / 117649, about 7.5x better than winning the jackpot on premium bonds. I know where to put my money


Anyone who's ever played roulette will know 1/36 is quite a slim chance, worse odds are pretty unreal.

This has been worked out before on the odds you quote.
I look at it more simply. I believe there are 300,000 holding the max ( I stand to be corrected ). Now if you take the number of big bond holders who win large prizes each month ( the majority ) and set that against my figure surely the odds look better against the total holding of all bonds issued.
So as we both have the max I would say our odds are better still.
Our joint winnings on average each year £1600 over 10 years + £500 prizes.
It is an enjoyable gamble.

Two £50 and one £100 win this month on 30K, not bad (for once).

50 quid for me this month. Where is my million? OK, a 100,000 will do :-)

Just bought my first £1000 worth.
A bit dissapointed when I was told the first draw would be the march draw.

Going to try to buy another £500 to £1000 each month. Jackpot here I come

Hello everybody, not been here for quite a while.

Other half and I have max amount in premium bonds (£60K). I think we were in the first draw in August 04, I think we have only broken even twice, biggest win in one month for both of us was (I think) £350, this month we each won £50 - what a bummer.

do remember that th epremium bond prizes are taken from the interest received on all the PB deposits. That means an averagely lucky person should be able to recieve prizes equivalent to (no more, no less) the prevailing deposit rate. the question therefore is, as Clint would say, "are you feeling lucky".

Stupid question - but;

Are the winnings tax free?

Yes.

The whole premium bond thing is tax free. If you're a higher rate payer and max out your cash isa, go for premium bonds.

Oh my gosh, came home from work today to find I had 5.......YES 5! Premium bond prizes 2 * 100's and 3 * 50's....okay not a huge win but nice all the same......best bit is Prudence Brown isn't claiming 40% of it back to fund his wealth re-distribution policies of which he recently lifted £500 off me for my non-ISA savings

I have had 20k for 9 months in Premium Bonds and won £50! Just transferring the money to ING - waste of time if you ask me.

Well I got another 3 * £50 'prizes' this month on my £30K holding....so i'm happy ticking along with them.

Had 1 £50 this month. I am hoping to win the million tomorrow - St. David's Day! Come on the Welsh!

FB,

Yes it's abit sneaky - you need to hold the bonds for one whole calendar month after you buy. The best time to buy is therefore at the end of the a month eg If you buy today your new bonds will be entered into the May draw but if you buy at the end of March your bonds will also be in the May draw. You can buy over the 'phone using a Switch card (0500 007 007)

Cheers

I chucked them right out once I realised the quoted 3.2% interest was purely based on your chances of winning. I thought you got 3.2% + possible wins.
moved it straight to my mini-stocks isa.

Statistically ERNIE says that every bond has an equal chance of winning.

So, if you were to buy 30,000 in one go so that all your bonds were sequential, you have the same chance as if you bought bonds piecemeal over time and had bond numbers that were all over the place.

It just doesn't feel like the two scenarios have the same odds of winning, but they must, mustn't they ?

Mrs C and I have always held the maximum bonds since 1990, and have done very well thank you.
I hold a 10k block which produces a lot of my wins, and Mrs C has three 5k blocks.
The bonds are like a massive roulette wheel which spins for each prize.
The bigger the mouth, the more chance of catching the ball.

We have about £4500 worth since 2000. One win of £50 to date.

Have we got an unlucky sequence of numbers?

On the Daily Mail financial forum I remember reading a few years back a post from a lady who was adamant that constantly selling and buying new premium bonds was the main reason why she was constantly winning. If I recall correctly she had a similar amount to you. It might be worth a try.

I think unless you hold the maximum amount of Premium Bonds it is not worth having them.

The odds of a single bond winning a prize is 24,000 to 1:

http://www.nationalsavings.co.uk/products/pb/rates.jsp

If you hold more than this amount (ie the maximum amount of £30k)

http://www.nationalsavings.co.uk/products/...nvestment_links


you are virtually guaranteed to win every month.

Another £200 this month. Thanks Ernie.

And another £200 in May.

I've had a good year too - averaging 6.7% over the last 12 months

Reckon after ten years and both holding the max, must be in line for one of the bigger ones. 50k or 100k would do nicely, not being greedy.
Did an analysis on the number of maxes winning the bigger prizes, looks a good bet.

I've got 6K in an ISA and 20K in a high interest savings account (roughly 4.7% per year). Would it be worth me putting 20K in to PBs?
Are all the banks PBs part of the same pot?

Banks do not sell Premium Bonds, only the government (National Savings) do!

Cheers Bob...Is there any online site for this? Would you hedge bets on 20K's worth?

http://www.nationalsavings.co.uk/products/pb/index.jsp

The interest rates for the prize fund are here:
http://www.nationalsavings.co.uk/products/pb/rates.jsp
Currently 3.2% tax free with odds of 24,000 to 1.

So with average luck, you should win £640 each year if you hold £20K of bonds.

I looked seriously at Premium Bonds whilst a higher-rate taxpayer and have rapidly gone off the idea, mainly on grounds of principle.

All the Government has done is, in effect, set the average AER at a level of 3.2% which may even fall short of what you'd get after higher-rate tax on a decent savings account or bond anyway. And that doesn't take into account the one month plus that you have to wait before entering a draw (why exactly)?

At what rate is all the accumulated punters' cash invested? How tax-free is this really?

Because if they did not have the one month rule then people would sell all their bonds at the start of every month then buy them back at the end just in time for each draw!