Cash ISA - once withdrawn you CAN'T add funds?

Rochdale_Guy · 16 November 2004 at 11:07PM

Can someone please help me here ASAP ?

I think I've really f*****d things up now I'm debt free :o

Courtesy of my EGG card and them lending me £3,400 at 0% until 1/1/2005, I put all of the £3,000 in to an "iF" Mini Cash ISA. The other £400 into an ING a/c.

EGG wanted about £65 per month minimum repayment back, which they took out my current bank account via Direct Debit.

I then transferred £65 each month from the "iF" ISA to my current bank account to replace the EGG monthly D/D... follow me so far.

Well, this has meant £400 has come out of the ISA into my bank account.

This £65 tit-for-tat would have continued until say 2 weeks before EGG wanted there £3,400 back (minus the £65 monthly repayments made) in January 2005.

Any interest received was pure PROFIT for me on this "borrowed" amount, fair enough.

Problem is I only have £2,400 in the ISA now, and this is reducing by £65 each month remember.

Can I pay back £600 from my current account (or other source) to top the ISA back upto to the £3,000 limit or have I blown it for this year 2004-2005 ?

Please reply. I think I've screwed up badly :-[
Thankyou,Rochdale_Guy

P.S. Just suppose some fool I know (!) also transferred a further £1,900 from the ISA into an ING direct account 'cos he was receiving more monthly interest on his larger £10k+ ING balance than with the "iF" ISA - depsite he was paying tax on the ING account.... leaving now just £500 in the "if" ISA. Is he totally screwed now ?

HELP PLEASE !!!!!

Remember, I only had the borrowed £3,400 from EGG until 1st January 2005 anyway, so I can't have lost that much in interest can I ?

Oh yeah, purpose of this post is my other half wants to see what savings I have, hence asking if I can add to the lowly £500 "iF" ISA balance.

Sorry for any shrouds of secrecy here :-X :-[

Rochdale_Guy · 16 November 2004 at 11:23PM

Of course, now I've blabbed, you need to see the other half of this mess.

One minute I'm in a credit card debt hell, then free !

Now I'm back in a bigger mess (with my other half) and at the time of writing this, we have split up after 8 years of being together :'(

What you also need to know is I borrowed £10,900 at 0% APR off my MBNA card and put this into an ING direct account.

However, when I posted I was debt free, I actually used £900 of the ING savings to pay off the £900 I owed on my American Express BLUE card, which I did and closed down.

My other half has quite rightly nagged me about not having any savings and I thought if she didn't see £100 going out my bank account for the next 9 months to pay off the AMEX debt, she'd be happy.

Well, I never shared my latest bank statements with her as promised for the past 2 months which let me bung some money from my bank account into my ING account to recoup the "lost" £900.

Months come and go and we had a HUGE blazing row and her mum was kinda on her side about me not putting anything away for a rainy day leaving me promising to show full bank account and any savings account statements I have.

Now the S**T has hit the proverbial fan.

I panicked and drew £2,000 out the "iF" ISA into my ING direct account so I could say "I borrowed £10,900 interest free off a credit card which is earning us free interest every month, but I have to repay this £10,900. The rest is my savings like the good boy I have been......" (I hate lies).

Thing is, I need the surplus ING direct money to repay the damned £3,400 EGG card interest free loan by 1/1/2005.

Please don't say I deserve all of this, I know I do.

It's just I've always managed my finances separately and she knew nothing of my credit card debt, it would have destroyed her.

I've paid it back and she doesn't need to know.

But what IS destroying me are these secret credit card 0% "loans" on the MBNA and EGG cards I made to try and make some free money.

Guess I was too greedy and deceitful eh ?

Please don't let me destroy 8 years of my life.

Can anyone please help me work out ASAP how to repay the MBNA £10,900 and EGG card £3,400 "interest free" loans without going down like a lead balloon ?

I will never borrow money again, even if at 0% and I will never jeopardise my relationship EVER again by keeping this secret.

Is there any hope ?

Please.....
Rochdale_Guy

deemy2004 · 17 November 2004 at 12:52AM

Somewhere along, you lost me bud

ISA limit is 3k per tax year.
You cannot deposit more than 3k per year, regardless of how much you withdraw.

So £3k deposit, then £1k withdrawls means you cannot then later on add £1k to get back to £3k.

Its a damn shame these accounts don't allow you to top upto your annual limits. But that is the way the world is.

Tony_H_3 · 17 November 2004 at 1:18AM

The most important question is...... How much of the £13,900 pounds do you have left? & How much are the oustanding debt amounts?
Didn't we celebrate the fact that you had finally become debt free alittle over a month ago? Apart from the Amex Blue did you use any of the £13,900 to pay off your other debts?

Rochdale_Guy · 17 November 2004 at 1:53AM

ISA limit is 3k per tax year.
You cannot deposit more than 3k per year, regardless of how much you withdraw.

So £3k deposit, then £1k withdrawls means you cannot then later on add £1k to get back to £3k.

Its a damn shame these accounts don't allow you to top upto your annual limits. But that is the way the world is.

So, the simple answer is I am stuck with just £500 in the "iF" ISA then ?

May as well withdraw that and bung it in the ING direct account then ?!?!

??? :-/

Reaper · 17 November 2004 at 2:01AM

Can I pay back £600 from my current account (or other source) to top the ISA back upto to the £3,000 limit or have I blown it for this year 2004-2005 ?

It's blown. Any money you take out you can not put back in because you have already used up your maximum £3000 this year. Next tax year you can put more in, but no more until then.

Oh yeah, purpose of this post is my other half wants to see what savings I have, hence asking if I can add to the lowly £500 "iF" ISA balance.

Like I said, you can't add to it.

As for your second post, you kinda lost me there too. If you are saying you took money out of the ISA to a non-ISA savings account then what is the problem? As long as you have the savings somewhere earning interest you can show them the statements for that account.

You mentioned £900 but said you had repaid that from your bank account - so I think you are saying you don't have any debts. Or did you use some of that 0% money in which case you do still have debts?

If the former (you are debt free), then you can show them you are stoozing money into a combination of ISA and ordinary savings account which should get you brownie points even if you have not managed to top it up with any genuine savings.

But don't promise to show them statements and then fail to. I can see why that annoys them.

If I misunderstood your post then I appologise in advance.

Rochdale_Guy · 17 November 2004 at 2:07AM

The most important question is...... How much of the £13,900 pounds do you have left? & How much are the oustanding debt amounts?
Apart from the Amex Blue did you use any of the £13,900 to pay off your other debts?

Thankyou also Tony H for your kind prompt reply.

At the moment, in the "iF" ISA is just £500 (which I may as well withdraw and put in the ING direct account).

In the ING direct account, there will very soon be a total of £12,782.

So, of the combined £14,300 borrowed at 0% (£10,900 from MBNA + £3,400 from EGG), I will have £12,857 saved from the ISA + ING a/c's. :-/

So, I actually am £1,443 down and OWE that, - oops! - I haven't deducted the £400 already paid to EGG via monthly D/Debits, so..... I will OWE £13,900 to them.

> £13,900 - £12,857 saved = £1,043 still owed

And I was meant to be making money for free on these 0% "loans"

Oh b*gger :-/ :-/

mini · 17 November 2004 at 2:54AM

Could you try writing to your partner to explain your intentions as far as I can see you borrowed the extra money trying to gain money not spend it, sometimes it's the intention which is worth more than the result if you write it down then you get to explain all points if she doesn't read it all in one go she can refer back, you have done so well & been so determined in reducing your debt does he know about how well you've done reducing your debt? Putting £100 a month to one side may not have been productive whilst you were repaying debt.

I really hope this works out for you, mini

johnllew · 17 November 2004 at 3:07AM

Don't panic. You may have to come clean and tell your other half what's been going on but if you refer her to your thread showing how you managed to reduce your debt over a period of time, I'm sure she'll be impressed.

And I wouldn't worry about losing your ISA allowance for the year; you'll have another £3000 allowance next tax year if you need it.

The figures you've quoted don't quite add up but they're very close. (You say in your first post that you took £400 out of the ISA to pay Egg but then say £2400 was left. You started with £3000, so there's £200 adrift somewhere). You now owe £943 net but you owed Amex £900 at the start so you're only £43 down. And perhaps you have some accrued interest on the IF ISA and ING a/c to the end of the month which might cover the £43? I don't know where the interest received during period from ING has gone but you must have had the benefit of it somehow.

I've sent you a pm.

deemy2004 · 17 November 2004 at 3:21AM

The whole point of stoozing is to err, not actually spend the money !

Okay your now about a grand down, the question is can you discipline yourself to keep your hands off the rest ?

Or should you now consider NOT stoozing, i.e. repay the credit card companies.

Maddie · 17 November 2004 at 3:23AM

Hi Rochdale Guy

I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding, but when you're calculating what you owe on the cards minus what savings you have, are you forgetting that you've already paid some money (the monthly minimum) back onto the cards?
Edit - sorry, I see now that you have included this :-/

In my opinion (and you don't have to listen!) the only way that you can have a really strong relationship is to be COMPLETELY honest. Surely if your partner sees the debt you were in, and how hard you've worked and how far you've come, she would be proud of you? OK so maybe you should never have gotten into the debt, and you never should have kept it from her, but you did, and you can't change that now. If you really think you're gonna loose her, isnt it worth a try, after all I presume you kept it from her with her sake in mind? If you think it would end up blazing into a bigger arguement, how about writing it all down as a letter, that way she has time to contemplate it all and has to listen to all you've got to say. But please just do whatever YOU feel is right, i would hate it if my advice made things worse!

Good luck!
Maddie

Cash ISA - once withdrawn you CAN'T add funds?

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