A premium bond is a savings plan developed by the British government to give the common man a chance to be able to save money and at the same time is able to win money in a lottery instead of interest. The program is very popular and almost a third of have bought premium bonds to add to their savings portfolio. There are several tiers to the prizes and the odds to figure out your chances of winning a certain prize is often difficult.  It would take a person several hours to figure out their odds by doing the statistics and many people do not have the math skills to perform the operations.  Now there are odds calculators that figure out the odds of winning in comparison to how many premium bonds purchased.

The odds calculator will allow you to put in the number of premium bonds that you have saved and through an online connection to the National Savings and Interest agency you can find out exactly the odds that you will win a big prize, the two million pounds, or a smaller prize, fifty pounds.  You can even figure out the odds for the multitude of prizes between the higher and lower amount.  The odds can change as more and more people buy bonds. They can go up if a lot of people suddenly purchase bonds, and they can go down if people cash in their bonds. Whenever you are in a gambling arrangement, especially with your savings, it is nice to know what kind of odds you have for winning. Click for premium bond winners.

The National Savings and Investments does offer your odds based on the average number of premium bonds that have been bought in the past.  This table is a good way to figure around what you might earn off of one bond.  If you have multiple bonds, again you would have to do the math to figure out the system. The more bonds you buy the more chances you will have to win and the odds will be closer in your favor. There is speculation that with the newfound interest in premium bonds, the odds will get so far out of reality that many people will opt for a traditional savings plan that will bear them interest. The ebb and flow of bond owners will dictate to changing of the odds and with the calculator you can see what month you will be more likely to win.

 
Remember that you can pull out of the premium bond program at any time. You will have the same amount of cash that you started with.  Life changes and the way you invest also changes. You may decide to opt out of the program if you have a family emergency or have a dire need for cash. The government secures your money so you do not have to worry about it being there when you are ready to cash in. Three may even be a better investment down the road and your nest egg in premium bonds will give you the opportunity to reinvest.

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Savers who have switched their nest-eggs into Premium Bonds because they would prefer to take a gamble, rather than sit with falling interest rates, will be disappointed to learn that their chances of winning a prize lessen with each.

Premium Bond prizes protected against base rate cuts

National Savings & Investments (NS&I) has announced that the Premium Bond prize fund is to stay at current levels, in February and March. The size of the prize fund is determined by the base rate and aggressive cuts in the rate have [...] 

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Premium bonds have come under fire from various groups. This government plan to give a saving opportunity to the common man allows people to buy premium bonds for a chance to win a fifty to a million pound cash prize. Unlike American lotteries, the money that you invest to buy the bonds can be used again and again during the monthly drawings. The bonds you invest in, the more you have a chance to win. The can buy up to thirty thousand premium bonds in your lifetime and the cash winnings can add up nicely if you are consistent.

Some religious groups find this is a way to gamble. Most protestant worshippers think that lottery or any other money for chance activities is prohibited by the Bible. What they do not know that you can’t lose money in the premium bond market, you only invest. If you win a cash prize fine, otherwise you can take your money and cash in the bonds with no penalty. The cash prize just adds the element of gambling to savings with the chance that you will forfeit your original investment. The random picking of the bond numbers is just making the activity fairer to all investors.

In the Bible there is no direct instruction not to gamble. In the Ten Commandments, thou shall not covet, is mentioned, but this could be interpreted as coveting another man’s wife or property.  The idea that money is coveted could be listed with the seven deadly sins of greed, but is the hope for a brighter future a sin. Premium bonds offer the saver a safe place for their money and a hope for money. There is nothing malicious about it. Even some of the money used by the government who sponsors the premium bonds goes to charitable organizations. Click to check premium bonds.

Even if it is not religiously oriented, there is a strong moral objection to gambling. There are some people that go over board when they are at a casino or playing the lottery, but premium bonds do not let you do that. You are not going to lose money. The money you put in will be able to be collected back anytime you want.  The winnings are an interest given out randomly with no chance of your losing the investment. It is not gambling. It is a different way to accrue your interest in a exciting way. Why get the meager interest rates offered by the traditional financial savings plan?  You have the chance of making thousand percents on your original money.

If you are now swayed from your belief that premium bonds are a system of gambling, you can purchase the bonds at your local post office and start a savings account that could make you a rich person. Even if you don’t become another Bill Gates you might get a couple of cash prizes that will be more than the three to four percent interest you receive in the traditional savings programs.

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Premium bonds have reached a milestone in financial history. At fifty years old this saving system has outlasted other government and private saving plans and seems to have enough stem to last decades to come. Not only is the premium bond a success the nation of Great Britain has embraced the bonds and actually holds an endearment for them. This is amazing for a system that doesn’t pay interest and actually rewards up to a million pounds to a single investor.  Over a third of the country invests in the bonds and that account for twenty three million citizens that have a stake in their future and the future of their country.

The big winnings are just the tip of the iceberg with this saving plan. Nsandi Premium bonds can be put be bought and exchanged for the exact same value as you put in. The cash prizes are just the crème on top of the milk when it comes to earnings. You don’t pay a penalty for withdraw nor do you lose anything except the meager interest that other savings plans have. All you have to do is fill out a repayment form from the National Savings and Investments agency and your money will come back to you. You usually only have to wait about a week to receive your cash in the post.

The sales of premium bonds are going out of the roof.  There is a premium bond bought every ten second in the country and this accounts to about twenty one million bonds bought a day.  The accessibility of purchase has increased in the last few years due to the availability of online venues. For those that are less technologically oriented they can go to the post office and purchase them in person. You have to purchase at least one hundred pounds worth of bonds to start your saving and you can even have payroll deductions or account withdrawals that will allow you to save as the purchases are put into savings automatically. You can save a maximum of thirty thousand pounds and just wait for the cash prizes to come to you. 

The bonds only cost a pound a piece and this bond gives you a chance to win one of over a million cash prizes awarded monthly. The National Savings and Investment agency has a random number generator that will pick numbers off of individual bonds and then report the winnings to the bond holders. The prizes range from two million pound awards to over a million fifty pound rewards. The bonds are issued consecutively and a single investment will let you be able to keep track of your number between the lowest and the highest. The rewards are also listed online and in most town newspapers.

If you like the thrill of the lottery and the hope of free money coming your way, the premium bonds program is for you.  Your money will not just sit in the bank and wait to accrue a meager interest. You will be able to get lump sumps each month if you are that lucky of a person.

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There is controversy about premium bonds and if they are really worth the investments.  If you calculate the odds of winning per bond and the interest rates for regular savings accounts, the argument could go both ways. On the positive side a premium bond gives the saver a chance to win over a million pounds if they are the two lucky numbers picked during the monthly lottery. The flip side of the coin is that there are thirty six billion losers each month.  There money stays the same, it does not loose its value, but there is no interest to generate profit. So the government, in all actuality, is using thirty six billion pounds worth of British money for free.

Click for nsandi premium bonds.

People who are skeptical about premium bonds contend that the reason the odds are so against the majority of the investors is that the distribution is skew by the way it awards the prizes. This would allow for the majority of the investors to have little to no chance of winning a cash prize. Their earning potential of their money would actually decline because they would not be earning the interest rate in a regular savings account or the rise of the earnings if the money was invested in stocks.

If you get past the hope of winning a million pounds then you can look at premium bonds for what they are. A fun way to save money and at the same time you can have the excitement of winning the lottery. To look at winning backwards suppose that one million people put in one pound apiece for the lottery. One person would win the million pounds, but there would nine hundred and ninety nine thousand and nine hundred and ninety nine people who would be losers.  Those people would have at least made a small percentage on their savings. It’s a choice between a chance for something big or a small interest to give you the satisfaction of profit.

Another way of looking at it is to look at the interest rate of a premium bound. The interest rat of four percent is the estimated payout for your one pound bond. The government uses the interest to create the prize bank and to allocate the prizes. So you would expect to win four pounds on a hundred pound investment. This is impossible because the smallest prize is fifty pounds. It would take around seven investors to loose their interest for that month if you won those fifty pounds. Even more people would lose their money to finance the two million pound give away to two winners.

There is simply a choice in the way you should invest your money and that choice is yours. Lotteries always provide hope for a better life even though you know in your heart that winning is a very long shot.  Savings accounts provide security both financially and emotionally because you know that you will get a return on your money.  It is just a manner of tastes and were you feel more comfortable.

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