£50 note ‘has lost more than three-quarters of its buying power since 1981’
23 June 2021, 00:04
£50 had the purchasing power of around £217 at today’s prices back in 1981, according to calculations from Hargreaves Lansdown.
The £50 banknote has lost £38 of its buying power over the past 40 years, according to a finance expert.
Left under the mattress, it would have lost £38.46 of its spending power since 1981, according to Sarah Coles, a personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
She was speaking ahead of the launch of the Bank of England’s new Alan Turing £50 note into general circulation from Wednesday.
Ms Coles said that, having been introduced in 1725, £50 notes were withdrawn in 1945 and reintroduced in 1981.
The new £50 note is coming on 23 June 2021. One of its features is a red foil sunflower that is inspired by Turing's fascinating morphogenetic work and studies on the patterns in nature. Find out more: https://t.co/nbOlU9kgCU #TheNew50 🌻 pic.twitter.com/Ma6ejGymXh
— Bank of England (@bankofengland) June 16, 2021
At that point £50 had the purchasing power of around £217 at today’s prices, she added.
Ms Coles said: “£50 isn’t what it used to be. If you had a modern £50 note when it was first issued in March 1981, and kept it under the mattress ever since, it would have lost more than three-quarters of its buying power.
“However, if you’d put it to work (by investing it) it could have grown to around £2,300.
“By contrast, if you’d put the £50 into a savings account paying an average of 2% over this period, it would have delivered just £110.
“It demonstrates that while holding emergency cash in savings is invaluable, keeping too much in cash over the long term means you risk losing spending power after inflation.”
