When I was a baby, my parents took the money they received as birthday gifts for me from family members and bought premium bonds. By the late 1960s this equated to £15 in Premium Bonds. This was equivalent to around £200 in today’s money taking into account inflation.
The bonds remained in an envelope at the back of a drawer for almost 25 years.
When I got married, my parents handed them over to me. Up to this point I was unaware of their existence. My parents encouraged me at the time to see how much value they had accumulated as it would help myself and my wife to setup our new home. I promised I would. I put the envelope at the back of a drawer with the firm intent of checking on any prizes accumulated.
Our first child was born and then our second. On each occasion my parents asked if I’d checked on the prizes or if I wanted them to buy some Premium Bonds for our son and then our daughter. Both times I said I’d dig out the envelope from the back of the drawer. I didn’t. It remained there, unchecked.
Our son turned 16. Our daughter turned 16. My parents reminded me again about the Premium Bonds. This was now the age of the internet and prize details were online. I dug out the envelope and checked for winnings online but the bonds were so old that I was directed to write to National Savings as old Premium Bond records hadn’t been brought online as yet. I wrote a letter and received a response. The Bonds were in my mother’s name, not my name. Unsurprisingly they had moved house over the intervening period. My mother would need to supply some additional information to update her registration.
I took the correspondence and the Premium Bonds, put them back in the envelope and put the envelope back in the drawer.
Time moved on. Our son and daughter graduated from university. Our son got married. Our daughter moved to the US to work for a year. We decluttered and then moved house. The envelope came across with us in the move and found its way into a different drawer in the office in our new home. Our daughter came back to the UK, tracked us down
and boomeranged back home again. Our son and his wife had a child, our first granddaughter!
For reasons I still can’t fathom, my wife went to a spiritualist. During the ‘reading’ the spiritualist had a ‘vision’ about my mother being entitled to some unclaimed money. Later in the week she recounted details of the ‘reading’ to my parents and they were intrigued. We thought long and hard and kicked around a few theories. One was a possible unclaimed pension from my mother’s early jobs with an organisation who are still trading. She made a few phone calls but they confirmed there was no unclaimed pension.
Then the subject of the Premium Bonds came up again. Did I still have them? Yes, of course... they’re in the envelope with the correspondence from around 10 years ago when we last looked into this and did nothing more about it. I want to the drawer in the office and took them out.
This morning, around 10am, we logged back into the NS&I website. In the intervening years the old Premium Bonds had been brought online and allocated to an account in my mother’s name and with her updated address. We went through the registration process including successfully answering a number of credit reference security questions to confirm her identity. No identity documents needed. No fuss. Registration completed in about 10 minutes.
The Premium Bonds were bought when I was a baby, not yet walking. £15. Equivalent to around £200 today. I’m now 52 years young. We logged in to see the account balance, original bonds plus all accumulated prizes over the past 50 years.
The account balance was...
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£15
Not one prize in 50 years.
The story of my life. Shaggy Dog story? No. Completely true.
Exchange your time for money. Earn as much as you can. Save as much as you can. Invest in real assets such as passive index trackers. Build wealth. Aim for your FIRE number. Jack in work. Enjoy your leisure time. Live long and prosper.
I wish everyone the best with their Premium Bonds but I won’t be buying any for our grandchildren. I hit the ‘cash in’ button on the website and entered my mother’s bank account details. She should be receiving the £15 back in her account during the course of next week and promised to pass it on as it’s my birthday money from 50 years ago.
I’m thinking about framing the old £10 and £5 Premium Bond Vouchers and hanging them in the office to act as a constant reminder of the time value of money and the impact of inflation.
Degsy
