The lazy bank account habit losing you £2,250 – and the simple quick fix | Personal Finance | Finance

It’s truly staggering how many people with huge sums of money are languishing in current accounts, earning little to nothing in interest. According to new research by Chase, this affects one in four Brits.

And it’s an easy trap to fall into. You pay the bills, move a portion of cash into savings, and leave the rest for the day-to-day. But when that surplus isn’t spent, it just sits idle. By the time the next payday rolls around, the cycle repeats, and your money grows. Your wealth, however, doesn’t. One in six people is now sitting on more than £5,000 in their current accounts. Interestingly, men appear to be the main culprits, with 21% guilty of holding non-interest-bearing cash compared to just 12% of women. In other concerning research by the savings app Spring last summer, as many as 8.3 million current accounts held more than £10,000, while 1.3 million held more than £50,000.

With top easy-access savings accounts currently offering interest rates of 4.5%, this seemingly innocuous habit is losing you hundreds, if not thousands, of extra pounds per year.

If you were to transfer that £5,000 balance into a savings account with a monthly AER of 4.5%, it would earn around £230 over 12 months. This jumps to around £450 for a balance of £10,000, and £2,250 for £50,000

That could be enough to offset most, if not all, of the household bill increases we’re all contending with this year, or even cover a city break or a week away somewhere sunny (and guaranteed to stay like it for at least 48 hours).

Today’s money tip is to be more proactive with shifting idle cash into a good savings account every month. Compare account interest rates on comparison sites like moneyfactscompare.co.uk. If that sounds like too much faff (it shouldn’t do, it’s easy), some current accounts actually pay interest. For example, digital bank Zopa’s Biscuit account pays 2% interest on balances for one year. With living costs on the increase once again, now is the time to really put your money to work.

This is a simple move, and it should pay off.

If you’re one of the brave souls running the London Marathon this weekend, a host of restaurants and retailers are giving out freebies. Get a free pizza at Franco Manco; a Whopper at Burger King; a shower jelly and massage balm at Lush; a drink at a Greene King pub; a pint at Brewdog; travel on TfL; or a main meal at Chipotle. Most require a 2026 medal to claim.

Got any old tech lying around that you don’t know what to do with? A back-breaking TV, or a drawer full of cables with no purpose at all?

Whatever it is, as long as it has a plug or a battery, Currys will recycle it for free and give you a £5 voucher in return. While a fiver won’t buy you much, it’s a nice reward for finally shifting the clutter.

This is known as the tech retailer’s “Cash for Trash” scheme, which saw 1.7 million items collected last year. You just need to use the £5 voucher towards a minimum spend of £25.

The mobile network provider O2 offers a similar scheme with O2 Recycle. You can trade in any unused phones, tablets and other gadgets for cash – with some worth hundreds of pounds. The scheme is open to anyone, not just O2 customers. Simply visit o2recycle.co.uk, input the device you want to recycle, and you’ll receive a quote in minutes. O2 will then provide the next steps to send off your tech to the factory, and you’ll be paid within three to five days.

I took the opportunity to visit the factory last month to see what happens after you post off your tech.

It’s truly a well-oiled machine where devices are securely wiped of data before being refurbished or recycled. One mum-of-three shared her success using the O2 scheme and other online marketplaces last year. She made an astonishing £2,000 in two months from old iPhones, a camera, and children’s clothes on secondhand mobile app Vinted. She told me, “I’ve found Vinted great for timing things right – list seasonal stuff like Halloween or Christmas outfits just when people start looking.”