{"id":90195,"date":"2025-05-10T13:54:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T13:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/90195\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T13:54:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T13:54:10","slug":"martin-lewis-shares-unbeatable-savings-account-with-jaw-dropping-50-returns-personal-finance-finance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/90195\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Lewis shares \u2018unbeatable\u2019 savings account with \u2018jaw-dropping\u2019 50% returns | Personal Finance | Finance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Martin Lewis<\/a> has urged thousands of people to check if they can open a Government-backed savings<\/a> account offering a \u201cjaw-dropping\u201d 50% return. Help to Save is a savings account offered to people on low incomes who receive the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP<\/a>) Universal Credit<\/a> benefit.<\/p>\n

Savers can deposit between \u00a31 and \u00a350 each month, earning an extra 50 pence for every \u00a31 saved – effectively a 50% interest rate<\/a>. The Money Saving Expert founder took to the social media platform X<\/a> to explain how it works, as nearly half a million more people qualify for the account due to a new eligibility rule change<\/a>. Mr Lewis said: \u201cThere is an unbeatable savings product that gives you a jaw-dropping 50% boost on what you save in it. It\u2019s called Help to Save. An extra 550,000 people are now eligible to open a Help to Save account, bringing the total to 2.7 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

Explaining eligibility \u201cin a nutshell\u201d, Mr Lewis said: \u201cYou have to be on Universal Credit, working, and have earned at least \u00a31 in the last month. Then, you can open a Help to Save account. The big change is that you used to have to have earned at least \u00a3793. Now it\u2019s just \u00a31. So, many more people are eligible for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crucially, the savings expert noted that you only have to meet the eligibility criteria to open the product. If things change, you can still keep it.<\/p>\n

Mr Lewis said: \u201cAs soon as you’re eligible, you should open one. Even if you stop being on Universal Credit, you could still keep the product once it\u2019s open.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Lewis explained how it works, detailing that you can save up to \u00a350 per month into the account, which you open through GOV.UK.<\/a> He said: “It\u2019s a state-sponsored savings account, and you can keep saving in it for up to two years. At the end of two years, you get a 50% bonus on the highest amount that you had in the account.”<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cLet me talk you through a scenario. Let\u2019s say you save \u00a350 every month, and you did that until you had \u00a3800 in the account. Then, due to a family emergency, you have to take all the money out. And after that, the cost of living<\/a> means you can\u2019t put any more in. You get to the end of the two years, and you\u2019ve got nothing in Help to Save.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens? The 50% bonus is on the most that you had in. The most you had was \u00a3800. The fact that you have nothing in now is irrelevant. 50% of 800 is 400, so you would get a bonus of \u00a3400.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the first two years, you can start the process again. By continuing to deposit \u00a350 a month, you’ll earn another 50% bonus at the end of the next two years, based on the highest amount you saved during each of the two-year periods.<\/p>\n

Mr Lewis said: \u201cIf you were lucky enough to be able to max it out for the entire four years, then you would be getting a bonus of \u00a31,200. You\u2019d have to have put \u00a32,400 in, and you\u2019d have a total of \u00a33,600.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI have long supported Help to Save and I\u2019m delighted to see it\u2019s available for more people. The big thing for me is having savings builds resilience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope this encourages you to do a little bit more research into Help to Save, double-check if you\u2019re eligible, and if you are, open one, get your money in and hopefully get a big bonus.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Help to Save account closes four years after it is opened, and savers will not be able to reopen it or open another one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Martin Lewis has urged thousands of people to check if they can open a Government-backed savings account offering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[345,51,1267,474,42770,1059,42773,8777,8776,42771,42772,940,3125,2499,3028,16,15,2377],"class_list":{"0":"post-90195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-benefits","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-dwp","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-help-to-save","13":"tag-martin-lewis","14":"tag-martin-lewis-benefit-tips","15":"tag-martin-lewis-latest","16":"tag-martin-lewis-news","17":"tag-martin-lewis-savings-accounts","18":"tag-martin-lewis-savings-tips","19":"tag-money-saving","20":"tag-money-saving-expert","21":"tag-personal-finance","22":"tag-savings","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-universal-credit"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}