Now that it is the new tax year here in the UK, we receive our interest on our cash ISA’s. The Egg Cash ISA is advertised at 6.05% variable. One thing I really missed when I signed up for it was the term ‘variable’. The two things that made me sign up for it was the 6.05% advertised interest and the guarantee to beat the Bank of England base rate for a year. The latter made me instantly think that it would provide me with a decent return, I know better now!

Whilst Egg have not done anything wrong, the point of this article is to be very careful when you sign up for these things and make sure you investigate the interest clearly. Instead of the £181.50 I thought I would get in return (6.05%) I in fact got £126.29 which equates to a 4.21% return. £55.21 less than I thought! You must also remember that if you pay in installments you also won’t see the return you expect, maybe self explanatory but it’s easy to forget in the heat of the moment.

Moral of this story is take your time and read and do calculations, don’t hurry to sign up like I did as for such a small amount of money it can cost you fairly dearly.