Buying Premium Bonds

After seeing the various advantages and disadvantages of Premium savings bonds, I tried to find a way in which these bonds can be bought. Actually, there are several methods and options available for buying premium bonds. Anyone who is more than 16 years of age can get a savings bond. However, there are many instances whereby the parents, guardians and grandparents buy the bonds for the children who are less than 16 years of age. Premium bonds can be purchased from the Post office. One can also buy them using the phone or by mail. The application forms for the premium bonds are available at Post offices. Other than that, the application can also be downloaded from the National Savings and Investment website. This form is in PDF format, and it needs to be printed and then has to be sent by post after being filled in.

The minimum amount of premium bonds that can be bought is £100 and the maximum is £30,000. Everyone who buys a premium bond gets a bond holder number. This number can be nine, ten or eleven digits long. It has to be used for tracking any transactions, winnings, purchases, etc, and all the records related to the bond can be accessed with the help of this number. This number is also to be used while corresponding with the NS&I regarding the bonds. This number is very important and should be kept in a safe and private place.

What Are The Chances Of Winning Premium Bonds

One of my friends once asked me a rather complex question about bonds, asking what the odds of winning a premium bond were. What I found out was that if one buys a £1 bond, the chances of winning a top prize would be 24.5 billion to 1. If you consider this, the chances seem quite bleak. But if one buys £100 bonds, then the chances become 245 million to 1. Contrary to this estimate, according to the NS&I, the odds to win a prize with one £1 bond are 1 in 21,000.

One can increase the chances of winning a prize by buying more and more bonds. For example, according to the NS&I, if one has a maximum of £30,000 of investments in bonds, their chance of winning would be 15 prizes in a year, if their luck is average. The key word here is “with average luck” (which means that it is not necessary that someone would win). It’s only a chance. If we compare the National Lottery with premium bonds, one thing is that in bonds, one loses their stake in case of losing. With lotteries there is nothing like that and there are more chances of winning because the prizes are on weekly basis instead of monthly.