Marcus 1 Year Fixed Rate Saver - closed!

On the plus side, CPI inflation down to 0.8% today. So, these 1%-ish savings rates perhaps not so bad.

I'm personally going to go for Atom bank next - either 1.35% 1-year or 1.45% 2-year. I quite like Atom, very slick. Investec have been good too, but I'm already maxed on the Notice Plus issue 1 (still paying 1.59%, not sure when it's going down).

Sorry guys I just dont get these fix rates .
Even with Inflation at 0.8% you are still only making 0.5% a year.  and you are LOCKED IN for a year. So ANY financial opportunity that arises you won't be able to participate. There is talk of negative interest rates which will be really interesting to see how the markets absorbs that.
I find it strange the investment logic of people, some have paid a penalty of 1.5% of capital to withdraw from RS, and now are going to fix that money for less than a 1% gain.??
There is even talk of locking your money in for 2 Years at 1.45%. !!!

Since this thread was started all stocks markets have gone up 2-10%
Look at GOLD look at tech stocks. they are up 20% in a month . Yes it wasn't guaranteed , yes they might go down again, (probably will when this stuff gets resolved) but you can make the 1% you are happy to make in a year   in a very short period of time !!! You dont have to stay invested for the year, thats the key.
1 Example, Vodafone annouced they are still going to pay a dividend, the stock was around 108  2weeks ago, its at 127 now.so around 15% rise in 2 weeks and they pay approx 4% divi.. in June. Im not holding out til June I sold out at 125 as I made the 15%. Yes it might go to 140 or 110 - I dont care. Its 15% in 2 weeks its better than 1% fixed for the year.
Imagine in 6/9months we start to get back to normal, P2P is alive, the withdrawals have all been stabilised, confidence is back and you can get 4%,  would you re invest ?  If you answer yes, you won't be able to as you are locked in to your fixed rate. If we get back to normal, where will the stock markets go ? Where will Inflation go ? 
In 6 months time you have a US election, this will create so many opportunities. In 2021 you have Brexit, again so many opportunities 

So why not stick it in instant access at 1%, and at least give yourself the chance to seize on opportunities when they arise in the future

I have made my thoughts very clear on these fix rates - I think they are a complete waste of time - so Low. I don't come on here to berate, lecture or gloat at people, I come on here to hopefully make you see how your money could work for you in these depressing times. 
If you made 1% a month thats 12% a year 

On a side Note JUSTUS.CO a P2P lender is still paying 1.2% on balances in there lending account, they say its client protected, its held with in a Barclays client structure, they are FCA regulated but  DYOR If all this is true, this is a good as any access account as long as the platform is alive. Obvs if the platform goes under, you will have to wait a while to get your money back from the client account. If we use Lendy as an example it could be about 2/4 months.

I hope I havent offended anyone, it wasn't my intention.
Good luck everyone.

Be fearful when people are greedy and greedy when people are fearful....WB

While I agree with your sentiment in part surely it depends on what kind of savings you are talking about? Yes for tier 4 savings but not lower tiers... A low fix rate might be appropriate here.

Tier 1 - 3 months net salary - Emergency might need it tomorrow (e.g. I need to hire tomorrow an expensive lawyer, as accused of a serious crime I did not commit)

Tier 2 - 12 months spend - Emergency over the year (e.g. being made redundant)

Tier 3 - Depends on your risk appetite (you would be very annoyed/devastated if you lost it all)

Tier 4 - Rest of savings....

T1 tick
T2 tick although to be fair I cannot be made redundant, daughter had a wedding last year does that count certainly cost more than my last 12 months wage packet but that was over 12 years ago now.
T3 tick although Mrs Aju has a much lower appetite than me I'm in charge 
T4 thats my area I'm working in and in P2P we are a little over exposed but money is returning slowly. Hence my Inflation plus a bit I work with.

Very good question though should be interesting to see what the answer is although I don't think I'd ever be a day trader I've got guitars that need playing and a wife that despite being stuck inside still manages to spend daily!. Having not active lends to make in P2P means I do have some slack to play with. Some of them look a bit shady though i'll just go back into my shell I think!.

I tweaked Tier 3 after you picked it up but interesting point about joint managed funds. My instinct is that you would need to manage to the lower of the two's risk appetite or inevitably there is going to be a difficult conversation about where the money has gone at some point...

You are not wrong on joint managed funds, although to be honest Mrs Aju hasn't a clue what P2P and mostly she has just assumed I know what I am doing, that said Mrs Aju is now using it against me almost everyday. Mind you her overriding philosophy is to spend the money not take it with us to the grave and she mostly has that option still even within lockdown. Somedays I do have to behave like the government and come up with deflecting approaches though but teh spend on ancestry over the last year or so is quite expensive especially as she has been very forensic in checking all the ancestral lines with a fine tooth comb, I think we are propping up half the records offices across the uk but I guess that's another story. 

To be frank I think I did leave it way too late to pull the P2P plug but we will be ok. I have the last 8/9 years of excellent returns to fall back on across most of our accounts and investments, losing the shares dividends for the next 18 months to 2 years will be a hit too but none of them were ones we relied on. All of it was T4 at worst.

I would also point out that even in the case of RS, where they are currently taking a 50% dip out of all our interest returned, it works a lot better than most for us as I was very hands on in getting better than advertised rates across all the invested options. It was a lot more local effort and diligence in finding patterns of reduced lending inflating the rates but it definitely was a better strategy than just investing and letting it ride - to be honest though without the higher rates available this way the risk would have been a miss rather than a hit anyway.