Making savings accounts work for you

Although there is no bad time to start up a savings account or ISA, the new tax year brings with it a whole new opportunity to get your cash working for you. For those who opt for the former, a range of products that utilise various online and telephone banking facilities are available. This means you can keep a close eye on how your savings are performing and top up your nest egg on a regular basis. If, however, you choose the latter, you could also be enjoying a tax-free return on your cash investment. From April 6th 2010, everyone will be able to put up to £5,100 into a cash ISA, which would also leave the same amount available for use in a stocks and shares ISA. Both of these products could provide a great way to save and with both fixed and variable rate options available on the former, you can be as reserved or adventurous with your funds as you wish. Lloyds TSB recently published some advice for those who want to take advantage of the above facilities and encouraged people to consider the many benefits of using a savings account or ISA to strengthen their finances. In Getting your finances fighting fit for the New Year, the bank picked out January as a great time to do this and suggested talking to an expert about how best to approach this. Now, although this information may not seem quite as relevant as the new tax year approaches, the truth is that it is more relevant than ever. Giving your personal finances a workout was the main focus of the piece and the first thing that was suggested was creating a budget. Considering your incomings and outgoings - something which can be aided with the use of a budget calculator - will allow you to build a clearer picture of what kind of regular savings contributions you will be able to make. Once you have decided whether you want to invest in an account or an ISA, Lloyds TSB also has an online savings tool that can help you calculate how much you’ll save. Commenting on the advice, Peter Jackson, managing director of consumer banking at Lloyds Banking Group compared rejuvenating your finances with a budget and a savings package as "one of the simplest but potentially most rewarding things you can do". With all this in mind, it is clear there are a wide number of ways in which you can make your money work harder. But whether through an ISA or a savings account, now might just be the time to take full advantage of this.