I'm thinking of buying some premium bonds. Anyone out there with some who can tell me whether this is good/bad idea

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

Answers

They used to be awesome. My office-mate had all her savings in them and said that she got a better return on small prizes than she would have got from a decent interest rate savings account. However, to compete with the National Lottery, they have had to reconfigure prizes so there are fewer small prizes. She now says they are shite.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

I've had a hundred pounds of them since I was a kid...and haven't won a thing.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

I put #10 in, in 1985 (minimum purchase now #100). I won #150 in the first year which I took all in premium bonds but have won nothing since. That is still an excellent rate of return.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

A few people bought "premium" bonds in 1994 is, whilst getting loads of benifit in the first few years they didn't read the small print and by 2000 they had little value. Some Holders of these "premium" bonds had to move and despite jumping the queue in the first place became incrediby upset at having to move to a new bit of plastic to watch a match. Holders are said to get very irritable and even those who sypathised with them eventually got bored with Bond holders attempts to ruin their football team.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000