Premium bonds

I have full amount and won £125 this month. I did an experiement in 2024, must have been bored one day. I printed my full holdings off and then marked which of the bonds had any winnings over the last five years. All the winners were contained in a batch of £1000 or higher - none of the lower under £1000 had won. The largest batch had most wins. So in the years where I had been reinvesting and winning £25 - £100, none of those had won anything! Having read somewhere the odds increase with higher batches, I started to cash in the smaller individual holdings and immediately buy back in larger denominations, strangely (or not), I started to win more - just saying? I still have a way to go because it is time consuming and I think now, you can't pick which bond to sell, they just take the oldest (I haven't looked lately that might have changed back again) - for me now that would mean removing a couple of larger ones to filter out some smaller ones, so I'm a bit undecided. If a bit cynical or curious like me, and you hold lots of smaller batches, I do at least recommend the 'check' of which bonds have won. Good luck in 2026 everyone:-)

yogitree

Do you have to hold a lot of PBonds to win? We have never had much spare income and my DH has a single premium bond he was sent in a birthday card from an auntie about 70 years ago. He has never won a penny. Exuse naivety, PB's have not been a part of our lives!

Moneysavingexpert Martin Lewis explains here:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/premium-bonds/

The video is old, made when interest rates were very low, but the same principles apply.

He explains that if you hold only £1,000 of bonds you are unlikely to win anything.

They are a poor investment for anyone unless they have better than median luck.

If a couple put £100,000 in a savings account yielding 4.5%, even if they had used up all their *savings tax breaks and both had the top marginal tax rate of 45%, they’d still net over £200 every month guaranteed so over £2,400 for the year.

*ISAs, the Starting Rate for Savings, Personal Savings Allowance

A couple paying only 20% tax who had used all their tax breaks would net £300 a month or £3,600 a year.

The chance of any bond winning a million pounds is 2.7 billion to one - the populations of China and India combined.

The chance of any bond winning a £100,000 is over 70.5 million to one - more than that population of the UK.

In theory, the more bonds you have, the more chance you have of winning something but for 135,637,982,946 (135.6 billion) bonds each month it is virtually certain they will win absolutely nothing.

We used to have the maximum but withdrew most of it a couple of months ago. We left only £5,000 each. This month I actually still won - £50. Unexpected but very welcome.

Just bought some premium bonds for my Granddaughter online. Haven’t received an email confirmation! Is this normal?

My husband and I each hold the maximum, this month he won nothing and I £750 !

Do you have to hold a lot of PBonds to win? We have never had much spare income and my DH has a single premium bond he was sent in a birthday card from an auntie about 70 years ago. He has never won a penny. Exuse naivety, PB's have not been a part of our lives!

My husband and I both hold the maximum, this month he won nothing and I £750 !!

Well, I have £1000 in bonds since 1962, and I have never won anything! I even wrote and asked them to confirm my bonds were going in the draw, which they said were.

I won 2.5k in total last year, will see what this year brings as just £50 this week….. it will pay for my petrol !

£525 for this household. £500 is the highest we have ever had, so delighted!

£100 for me and £25 for my OH. My win will pay for my hairdresser’s bill!

What I want to know is this: who has (yet again!!) gone off with my million pound prize? NS&I keep giving it to the wrong people!

We both won. £175 for me and £325 for DH. It all goes into our account and will be a big help with car service, Mot, insurance and Road fund tax this month.

Mine goes into my current account and is just spent on “whatever”.
In my late 80’s I am not saving anymore, not spending rashly but doing whatever I want.

DH got £250 but I haven’t told him as whatever I get he says I would have done better investing elsewhere . I only got £75 but it goes into my account while his is reinvested. I make a point of spending it usually on kindle books. Secret vice 😁

£150 this month, £250 last month. Happy with that.

£25 today! 😁
Better than zilch I suppose.

Nothing for me this month, I usually win something most months, so I get disappointed if I don’t win anything!

Oh well, my holding is small and my last win was £50 in 1975!

I haven’t won anything for months 😫

DH won £150. Nothing for me 😞

Nothing here - nor for about the last 4 months

£50 here.

Nothing for me but £50 for husband.

Only £25 for me this month. Better than nothing I suppose!