March 2010
So here I am on the eve of going to Paris and Ryan has 60 euros spending money. An eight-year-old with 60 euros! Not sure what’s he going to do with it all though I’m sure he will try and spend every penny (sorry, cent!).
How does an eight-year-old accumulate 60 euros you ask? Well, very easily in the end. He did save some and he worked for some as well. And then he decided to work for other people who he discovered paid more than his miserable dad! While I paid him £5 for helping me to wash and hoover both cars, the next door neighbour paid him £4 for just washing her car (and I helped him).
He also got money from his grannies who, without being asked, contributed to his pot. Though none for me and I’m a closer blood relative to one of them. Grannies are great if you’re a grandchild and wanting spoiled.
So that got me thinking; what about me? I could do with a windfall from somewhere, so off I went to find some. The grannies had already got a touch so I found these potential sources instead;
Forgotten bank accounts
There is £12m in forgotten bank accounts in Northern Ireland. Does one belong to you? Perhaps as a student or a teenager you had a savings account somewhere and you have lost the savings book or account number or just can’t remember too much about it. Well you are not alone.
The Consumer Council in Northern Ireland (www.consumercouncil.org.uk) are urging people to seek out their forgotten bank accounts and reclaim their money. There is some information on its website and it points you to www.mylostaccount.org.uk/aboutus where you can fill out a form to start the process. The form is fairly detailed and will ask you a lot of questions and the search will take in banks in the rest of the UK as well. Handy if you think you may have an account there from student days.
Scottish Widows
Scottish Widows gave up its mutual status in March 2000 and in doing so, compensated people who held certain types of policy or contracts with them. To compensate for giving up your rights as an ‘owner’ of the business, they paid a lump sum, the amount of which depended on a number of variables.
To date, 24,000 policyholders have not claimed their entitlement (a total of £50m). Are you one of them? If you are, you have until March 3 this year to claim your entitlement or you will lose it. After this date, it will be added to Scottish Widows With Profits Fund
If you had a Scottish Widows policy in 2000 and you have not claimed, you may be eligible for a payment. You need to look on their website (www.scottishwidowsh.co.uk/unclaimed/#form) or phone them on 0845 845 0829. You may have to hold for a while.
Premium Bonds
Again, some of these have been forgotten about. Maybe you bought premium bonds years ago and have moved house and not notified them of the new address or perhaps you received some when you were born. You can now check the numbers on the National Savings & Investments website www.nsandi.com. Sharon received some premium bonds when she was born and we haven’t checked them for years, if at all. The numbers are now obsolete, however, the website gave us the new numbers. Worth checking out.
So where are we with this? Well, after all these years Sharon’s two premium bonds had won nothing! And we are still waiting for the forgotten bank account search to come back to me (though I’m not holding my breath!).
I think the best chance for me is the grannies’ money given to Ryan. What’s the odds on me getting some coffee and croissants bought by Ryan? About the same as an Irish victory in Paris – fairly good!