You may be patting yourself on the back after you have signed up for a great high-interest account, but you should still keep a close eye on your cash. Payouts can plunge dramatically the more you put in the account, and with some accounts demanding a minimum pay-in per month, that can happen faster than you think and suddenly the generous slices of interest you have become used to have shrunk to a measly crumb.

There are currently 12 accounts offering interest rates of 5% or more, and these are definitely worth looking at, but the headline-grabbing rate is only good for balances up to £2,500, according to research by moneyexpert.com. When you consider that the Alliance and Leicester Premium Direct Account demands £500 per month, you have hit the buffer in just five months and the rate of interest will drop to 0.58%.

If you’ve signed up to the Alliance and Leicester account or HSBC’s Bank Account Plus or Halifax’s High Interest Current Account you should be aware that your cash won’t be growing as rapidly as you might have first thought.

All is not lost if you’re a big saver, though.  Coventry’s First account pays out 5.6% up to a maximum of £250,000, but you must pay in £1,000 per month.

Cahoot pays out 3.65% on balances below £250,000 and Yorkshire Bank’s Current Account Tracker pays 4% if you have an income of £75,000.

If you’re feeling particularly savvy and want to dodge the interest rate plummet but still want to cash in on the high interest in the first few months then you could set up a standing order that transfers a significant amount of your savings into a more modest account that will consistently give a rate more generous that 0.58%. You could also put the money into an ISA or fixed-rate high interest account which will not allow you to touch the money so you can sit back and watch it grow.

The Alliance & Leicester Direct Issue 4 ISA pays out 6% and requires a minimum  investment of just £1. The ICICI HiSave Term Deposit fixed-rate account offers an even more appealing 7% but will tie up your money for at least a year. On the plus side, the minimum investment is still just £1.

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