I am writing this post in collaboration with Santander and it is about household bills. You know the ones…the pesky bills that you pay each month but try your best to block out of your mind because adding up the total of them is enough to bring you out in a cold sweat!
Santander recently held a survey and found out that 26 per cent of households don’t read their utility bills properly and over a million households don’t open their bills at all!
I have to say I’m rather good about opening my bills as soon as they arrive on my door mat…but then I have a quick glance over them and put them in the never-ending pile of ‘To Be Dealt With‘ letters! The bills do get looked over at some point but before I have got up the enthusiasm to take a look through the bills…with a fine-tooth comb, I might add – they’ve more than likely already been paid by the Direct Debits I have set up.
Off the top of your head do any of you know what you are paying out per year on your household bills? The results of Santander’s survey reveals that on average we underestimate our household bills by £770 a year! Now that’s a scary thought!
I am not actually sure what the total of my yearly household bills comes to but if I took the time to work it out then I could input it into Santander’s cashback and interest calculator and see what amount of cashback and interest I could earn from paying selected household bills through a Santander 1|2|3 current account.
If you haven’t seen the TV advert already then I will tell you a little bit about the 1|2|3 bank account from Santander. It is said to be able to save you money as you can earn up to 3% cashback on certain household bills. For the £2 a month that it costs you to have this particular bank account you will be able to get Monthly cashback of 1% / 2% / 3% (cashback rate depends on the type of bill and the full list of details is here) on selected household bills and Monthly interest of 3% AER (variable) on balances between £3,000 and £20,000.
To be able to get cashback on your household bills and interest on your bank balance you just need to do these things:
- Pay a monthly account fee of £2.
- Fund your 1|2|3 bank account with £500 a month (excludes internal transfers). A minimum balance of £1,000 is needed to receive interest.
- Set up at least 2 Direct Debits on your account to pay selected household bills. You’ll get monthly cashback on selected household bills you pay by Direct Debit
I think it is a great idea that Santander are offering cashback on selected household bills that are paid by Direct Debit. We all have lots of bills to pay each month and the amount we are paying out can be very frightening to think about. However if we all take a little time to work out which bills we currently pay would be eligible for cashback with this account then we might all find that we could be saving ourselves a bit of money through the year with this account from Santander.
You can find out more about the Santander 1|2|3 bank account (and see the full terms and conditions) on this link :- http://www.santander.co.uk/uk/current-accounts/123-current-account They have a FAQ page that should be able to answer any you questions you may have but if not then you can phone and speak to someone on 0800 068 6069.
To apply for the account you need to be over 18 years of age and must live in the UK permanently. You can either apply online, over the phone or in your local Santander branch.
* This is a collaborative post