€25k invested in prize bonds

XrayMike235

Winnings from todays draw: €0
Total winnings since October 2008 on €18K: €1200

Date of last win: Sept. 14th 2012

hairyprincess

Winnings from todays draw: €0

Total winnings since Feb 2010 on €500: €150
Total winnings since Feb 2011 on €50: €0

doriansmith

Winnings from today's draw: €75
Total winnings since Jan 2012 on €22500: €600
Total winnings since July 2009: €1275

My bonds are a joint investment with my fiance of €11,250 each. We've won the last two weeks in a row now :-)

We bought them in 5 batches during 2009 & strangely enough, six of our 8 wins this year have been from the same batch of 1300 bonds.

Agent Smyth

Winnings from 07/12/12 draw € 0
Last win 12/10/12 €75
total wins this year €300

WhiteMan32

Winnings from today's draw: €0
Total winnings since Feb 2012 on €12k: €150

Cute Hoor

doriansmith wrote: »

We've won the last two weeks in a row now :-)

Snap! 2 in a row for me as well!

Winnings this week €75
Total winnings since February 2005 €675 (no record of wins prior to this)

Last weeks winner bought January 2001, this weeks bought November 2010

Value of Prize Bonds €6,800 (being bought monthly)

positron

Subscribing - I'm putting aside some money into this, just for the fun!

worded

Would like to see some transparency with the choice of number picking.

and tonight's draw will be over seen by KPMG - not
More like shrouded in secrecy.

doriansmith

Winnings from today's draw: €75
Total winnings this year on €22,500: €675

Wow, three weeks in a row for me now!
:-)

uberalles

Prize bonds in the UK. Is it possible to buy them if you are Irish in Ireland ?

Tired of winning FA in the irish one.

XrayMike235

Winnings from todays draw: €0
Total winnings since October 2008 on €18K: €1200

Date of last win: Sept. 14th 2012

nedsgarden

uberalles wrote: »

Prize bonds in the UK. Is it possible to buy them if you are Irish in Ireland ?

Tired of winning FA in the irish one.

Sure you can - have some and do not feel that lucky - return rate of 1.5%, really is a case of spare money and a bit of fun......

Man of Aran

nedsgarden wrote: »

Sure you can - have some and do not feel that lucky - return rate of 1.5%, really is a case of spare money and a bit of fun......

Tried to buy some Premium Bonds in a Newry Post Office a few years back.
Filled in the application form with a Dublin address.
All looked well ... 'til refund arrived in mail a week later saying sales to Irish Republic not allowed.

Agent Smyth

Winnings from 14/12/12 draw € 75
Last win 12/10/12 €75
total wins this year €375

nedsgarden

Man of Aran wrote: »

Tried to buy some Premium Bonds in a Newry Post Office a few years back.
Filled in the application form with a Dublin address.
All looked well ... 'til refund arrived in mail a week later saying sales to Irish Republic not allowed.

I was going on their website, it lists "Overseas" winners, which i would have thought was non-uk purchasers. Having checked their website it seems you need a UK bank for purchase, sorry for the confusion .

http://www.nsandi.com/

pbwinner

Winnings from today's draw: €0
Total winnings since Feb 2011 on €25k: €750

Owlhead

I have signed up especially to say to pbwinner that I have been rooting for them every week. Heretofore I would have said that I do not believe in luck but dude...you're breaking my heart! Are you going to re-invest? It's been a lean couple of months.

WhiteMan32

Winnings from yesterday's draw: €0
Total winnings since Feb 2012 on €12k: €150

uberalles

nedsgarden wrote: »

I was going on their website, it lists "Overseas" winners, which i would have thought was non-uk purchasers. Having checked their website it seems you need a UK bank for purchase, sorry for the confusion .

http://www.nsandi.com/

Can a UK relative buy you some on therir www and give their address ?
Once they arrice change address to your irish address. Or
Even leave it at their address in the uk.

Considering the state of the uk economy you would think they would relax that rule and accept punters from anywhere.

I did "9ok"on the uk lotto with the odd 50 here and there where as I've won FA on the irish one.

uberalles

I don't believe in miracles ..... I rely on them

nedsgarden

uberalles wrote: »

Can a UK relative buy you some on therir www and give their address ?
Once they arrice change address to your irish address. Or
Even leave it at their address in the uk.

Considering the state of the uk economy you would think they would relax that rule and accept punters from anywhere.

I did "9ok"on the uk lotto with the odd 50 here and there where as I've won FA on the irish one.

All seems plausible, all you need now is luck !!!

GhostInTheRuins

I have about €500 of prizebonds since last january. Not a penny on them. I think the time is coming for me to cash them in and throw them into my savings account, where at least they'll make me a couple of euros in interest as opposed to nothing.

Waste of time. If there's anyone reading this thread and thinking about buying some bonds, don't waste your time in all fairness. Just put your money into a savings account instead. Or even better, spend it on something cool

Cute Hoor

GhostInTheRuins wrote: »

I have about €500 of prizebonds since last january. Not a penny on them. I think the time is coming for me to cash them in and throw them into my savings account, where at least they'll make me a couple of euros in interest as opposed to nothing.

Waste of time. If there's anyone reading this thread and thinking about buying some bonds, don't waste your time in all fairness. Just put your money into a savings account instead. Or even better, spend it on something cool

Most people probably don't invest in Prize Bonds in the expectation of getting a 2/3% return every year without fail, it's the bit of a gambler in most people that has them investing, the chance of a 'big one'.

If you're looking for an annual return you're better off sticking the €500 in your savings account, you will probably get €6/7 per year after tax, that's about the price of 1.25 pints of porter.

oaklands

Agreed...

with €500 euros or 80 bonds you can expect to win €75(tax free) every 357 weeks or 6.9 years - 'on average'. To treat the 500 as an investment only you would want to have a longer term view of say 14-21 years. Winning the bigger prizes although possible is a bit of a dream.

If your time horizon is shorter then look at state savings (tax free) or other alternatives. NB: There was a reduction in the rates for new deposits in tax free state savings anounced today.

EDIT: just noticed that the prize fund for PBs is now reduced.....to 2.25% from 3%
Prize Bonds - Prize Fund is 2.25% pa. One €1 MILLION prize awarded each month,
1,000’s of other weekly cash prizes (tax free in Ireland).



see footnote 6 here

It is interesting to see when this will be implemented from January 2013, given that people who bought recently did so based on a 3% prize fund and their money is locked in for 3 months.

€1m & 20k prizes are the same
Other Weekly Prizes (Effective from January 2013)
€1,000 x 5 prizes
€100 x 500 prizes
€50 x over 8,000 prizes

which is a reduction of over 500 prizes per month or 6,000 prizes per annum, when compared to Dec'12.

m8

Cute Hoor wrote: »

Most people probably don't invest in Prize Bonds in the expectation of getting a 2/3% return every year without fail, it's the bit of a gambler in most people that has them investing, the chance of a 'big one'.

If you're looking for an annual return you're better off sticking the €500 in your savings account, you will probably get €6/7 per year after tax, that's about the price of 1.25 pints of porter.

So for 6/7 euro a year I can have 80 or so chances a month of winning a big prise and heaps of other chances of prises from €75 up. I'm in anyway I think thats better odds than the lotto

oaklands

Some quick calculations on the changes introduced today, which are effective for draws from Jan 2013.

The expected return is now realistically at 1.44462% tax free or 2.15614% equivalent DIRT return from Jan’13. (This compares to an expected return of 2.1857% tax free or 3.1224% equivalent DIRT return in Dec’12). The above is based only on the new €50 & €100 prizes as the remaining prizes are so unlikely for nearly everyone.

However, I believe there is a case to be made that the €100 prizes are extremely unlikely for smaller holdings. Thus the realistic expected return for these smaller holdings is closer to 1.284% tax free or 1.9166% equivalent DIRT return. (For example, with 1,000 bonds you are likely to win a €100 prize once every 10 years or 520 draws on average. Whereas, with 10,000 bonds you should win a €100 prize once per year on average.)

In case you are wondering the difference between the 1.44% above and the new 2.25% prize fund is accounted for by the €1m, €20k and €1k prizes which are so unlikely – they are excluded from the calculations above.

Another way of looking at the Jan'13 changes is that the number of prizes has been reduced by 500 approx (9,078->8506). and the value of the realistically achievable prizes has been reduced by 33% (75->50)

iora_rua

Following this thread with interest for a few years now, have had the odd 75E win on initially 4K now 2k, but will certainly not be investing any further, having read Oaklands post!

Have got a small dollop of cash in the UK Premium Bonds with a steady flow of little wins at 25 pounds stg every month or so - not a huge amount, but enough to keep me happy that I'm actually in the draw - and the Taxman on either side of the Irish Sea isn't interested. It wasn't always possible to purchase UK Premium Bonds, if you lived in Ireland, but that changed a few years back - as I discovered through reading an article in a Sunday paper.

Yes, you need to have a Sterling bank account (or arrange a Sterling draft), but I think this can now be arranged here through an Irish bank. Just check out the various banking web pages, or give them a call. Also, the Premium Bonds web page - if you can work your way through it - gives you all the info you need: www.ns&i.com or www.nsandi.com - can't remember off the top of my head, Google it!

Don't want to encourage money going overseas in the current climate, but the Prize Bond outfit really need to up their game.

GhostInTheRuins

oaklands wrote: »

Thus the realistic expected return for these smaller holdings is closer to 1.284% tax free or 1.9166% equivalent DIRT return. (For example, with 1,000 bonds you are likely to win a €100 prize once every 10 years or 520 draws on average. Whereas, with 10,000 bonds you should win a €100 prize once per year on average.)

Feck me, those are shockingly bad odds! Especially considering 10,000 bonds is €62,500. That much cash in a 3.5% savings account would get you more than €2,200 in interest a year.

oaklands

GhostInTheRuins wrote: »

Feck me, those are shockingly bad odds! Especially considering 10,000 bonds is €62,500. That much cash in a 3.5% savings account would get you more than €2,200 in interest a year.

Just to be clear, with 10,000 bonds you should win 1x €100 and 16x €50 prizes per year 'on average'. This would result in an expected average return of €902.89 p.a. which is 1.44462% tax free (or 2.15614% DIRT equivalent), plus you have the dream of winning big.

FYI: even with 10,000 bonds you should win either the €20k or €1M prize once every 500 years! Similarly you should also win the €1k prize every 100 years (or 5 of them every 500 years). (Its a real pity about the limited life expectancy of Humans )

All the above valid from Jan'13 draws.

Man of Aran

oaklands wrote: »

Agreed...


EDIT: just noticed that the prize fund for PBs is now reduced.....to 2.25% from 3%
Prize Bonds - Prize Fund is 2.25% pa. One €1 MILLION prize awarded each month,
1,000’s of other weekly cash prizes (tax free in Ireland).


.

Thanks Oakland for posting all this good info and your calculations.
This reduction from 75 to 50 E ,,,, was it a result of the recent Budget or unrelated ?
Seems a shocking move if from Budget measure.Things must be real bad over!