Triodos bank magazine
I know this blog is about living well with less stuff, but it is still relevant to think about what else we do with our money – if we spend less on things, even with the cost of food and other essentials rising all the time, some of us are likely to have a bit more left over to save for a rainy day. And it does matter what we do with our savings – banks (and building societies that have effectively become banks) invest our money in all sorts of places that we might not be very happy with if we knew about it. But it can feel like a big hassle to switch over something like a bank account – we thought about it for ages before switching our current account to smile bank (the online branch of the Co-operative Bank), which is a lot more ethical than many of the other high street banks – but we were pleased when we did. We are even more pleased by having our tax-free ISAs and savings account with the UK branch of the Dutch bank Triodos (they don’t have current accounts), because they not only avoid dodgy investments (tobacco, arms) but actively seek out ethical investments, including low-carbon ones such as the generation of renewables. I actually read their magazine and their annual report – these are really interesting and make me feel good about what my money is doing! Someone told me the other day he actually went to their Annual General Meeting and found it fascinating! Such a difference from the regular banks!
Small mutual building societies (ones like the Cambridge Building Society that never turned themselves into banks) are OK, too, as they basically use money from their savings accounts to lend to people who need mortgages. We have kept our ISAs from years ago with the Cambridge Building Society, although our newer ISAs are with Triodos. There’s another building society which is really good and lends money for low-carbon building schemes, The Ecology Building Society, and they are worth saving with as well. (We chose Triodos because they pay a slightly higher interest rate.)