Constantly Being Screwed

I have my mind on my money, and my money on my mind, as I believe someone once said. And why not, because it seems that if I didn't watch my finances like a hawk, I would constantly be getting screwed by banks and big businesses, all working together to part me from my pennies. It will not do.

I spend a lot of time looking at spreadsheets, constantly analysing, correlating, examining the performance of my many investments. I'm not into shares, I think they're a fast way to lose money (never mind my former colleague who has virtually retired on the millions he made from them) and I am not the type to put my capital at risk. No sir. I believe the proper term for this is "risk averse", and so I am, at least financially.

The problem is, even your friendly local building society is not to be trusted these days. Earlier this week I visited the website of my friendly local building society, which is in fact neither local nor friendly. I already have a modest deposit with them, and this week I noticed that they offer a savings account offering 6.4% interest. This is very good, so I applied for it. This morning I got the leaflet through telling me that everything had been opened. I logged on to check my account details and discovered that in the 5 days between my application and the account opening, the interest rate HAS ALREADY GONE DOWN and is now only 6.15%, which is less!

What a complete waste of time that was. But even then, the disaster was not over. No. For with the same society I also have an ISA. (Everyone should have an ISA.) Yesterday it paid me 5.65% per month. Which is a bit rubbish, but interest rates have been going down over the past few months. Today the website tells me that they offer 5.9% on ISA deposits. Whoo-hoo! An increase! More pennies each month for me. Or rather, not for me at all, because you see this ISA which pays 5.9% is a new, different ISA, and different from the crappy 5.65% ISA that I have. Which, by the way, now suddenly pays only 5.55%, as a further insult.

I bet they thought I wouldn't notice! Well I did. No good heels and bums and charlatans, all of them. How am I to retire by the age of 40 at this rate? They obviously know that ISAs are a nuisance to move around (you can't just take the money out and put it in somewhere else, you have to 'transfer' it so that it stays tax-free.)

Those bowler-hatted chaps at the Bradford and Bingley are on thin ice. But I may yet have the last laugh, because I've just opened a 6.49% savings account at.... Northern Rock. So that'll be interesting, eh.