Just woke up

charlie030882

Hi All,

Had another problem at the weekend with an Abbey account that myself and OH used to use for our bills. In August they charged us £60 for going over our account by £5.49 due to Sky taking more than they should have. Due to the fact that Abbey seem to take forever in sending statements out, we had 4 days to get the money in our account so I went to the branch and paid in £65.49 (to cover charges and amount over)- balance £0.00. I also cancelled all the direct debits as I wanted to use another bank due to Abbey's lack of customer service skills. On Saturday I went to town with my Mum who was visiting and as we were passing the Abbey I thought I could go in and cancel the account and get rid of the cards. I was shocked when the cashier said that the account was o/d by £25.00 due to another charge in September and that another £25.00 was due to be taken at the end of October. At this point I got really upset as this was just something else on top of it all. Basically even though the account was at zero, an imaginary interest charge was put on (it didn't appear on my statement - so I had shredded it thinking that everything was ok but also it didn't appear on the statement that she printed for me - it had the balance of 0.00 and then -£25.00, so surely if anything else had been added to my account, it should have been on their statements, nor could she tell me how much it was for; in fact she couldn' t explain it at all. She did refund the second charge and will wait for the one to go at the end of October so she can reverse that but with all the problems that I have experienced with Abbey I just don't trust them. My Mum had to lend me a £1 so I could put it in the account for the interest charges (that will never show up) but just feel that I have had enough. Has this happened to anyone else?

charlie030882

Is anybody there? I just need to chat as not v.happy at moment. It's not just about the debt stuff either, still haven't found work, still waiting for the benefits. I don't have anyone to talk to and don't really know what to do anymore. Was really positive when I first started this but it seems to be leaving me bit by bit.

GeorgeUK

Hi Charlie

You can't tackle it all at once and when you stop making progress it can feel like you've hit a wall. You need to take it slow and just keep heading in the right direction.

Do you get any benefits now - or is income still 0?

charlie030882

Hi George UK,

Unfortunately the income is still nill - this is what is getting to me because I am really trying hard to get work and don't mind what I do. I've registered with agencies and tell them that I am flexible with the types of work that I am looking for but still no luck. I'm also having to try and deal with all of the debt side of things in terms of writing letters, keeping track of what has gone out, the next step, but don't really get the support that I want from my OH and finding it difficult to say so without an arguement starting. He won't go and do a temporary job e.g. warehouse work, because he is a skilled tradesman (won't mention what - never know who's on here!) but I went to Uni and had planned to work with education/social sector but have never been in a job that I have found fufiling but I do it for the money which I think is what everyone does.

GeorgeUK

Have you put your CV online to sites like monster.com?

I realise what your are saying - it's hard to make plans when you don't know what your going to have available to work with. Have you tried setting 1 evening a week aside to go over all the finances and plans with OH so that you're keeping him in the loop and both working from the same page? This way it might not seem that you are "getting at him", but it may get him a little more involved with this and also make him feel he is contributing, if not financially then at least you are both working together and may not feel so frustrated.

charlie030882

That's a good idea - I will try that and see how it goes. I have put my CV on monster, I even advertised myself on the local Gumtree website to see if anyone was looking for admin staff; although at the moment the only jobs that they seem to have is for 'adventurous cleaners' and I'm not really into that sort of thing. Just going to keep plodding along and see what happens as soon as we're back in work we are definatley going to go with CCCS or Payplan and hopefully will start to feel better knowing that things are being paid off.

petrafyde

Hey Charlie.

Well done for confronting it head on.

Tough love is what I'd call Andys posts. It's obvious he didn't mean to upset you (from this side that is!) Basically its a harsh situation you're in obviously - and you don't need any more stress. A bit like me really, although a lot of mine was self-inflicted rather than anything else.

I'm tackling my debts on my own (see diary of a reformed ostrich ) and am using this month to ensure the overdraft is no longer an issue. I kept going over it and the charges rapidly spiralled out of control. I'm not saying you should tackle your debts all yourself, a lot of people reckon the DMP is the best way! Once my overdraft is not going over, then I'm tackling my bills. Npower is a major issue at £900 owing, but I'm forcing myself to do the bank first because they deal with all of our money!

Do you read? I've started listing my old books on Amazon. I used to collect wedgwood so as a result had LOADS of books about it and listed those. One turned out to be a collectors item in itself and is worth over £200! If that was to sell I'd definitely be in a position to start tackling my debts because that would cover the bank charges.

What about doing Avon, Betterware or something like that? You can start doing that almost immediately and altho it takes a lot of legwork it can pay off. If your level of written English is good, and you have a paypal account you can always write articles freelance. If you need any website details PM me and I'll give you the links.

Go and have a look at the Quidco website. If nothing else you do need to eat this month and if you can get delivery to your door from say Tesco for example, you can earn cashback and get free delivery by using Quidco AND a discount voucher all at once. There are some sites you can earn money from by just signing up! Make yourself a new email address using yahoo or hotmail and just use that for registering etc.

I must've missed about income - are you on or have you applied for JSA? You might well be able to get a loan from the social - hardship loan I think its called and obviously you dont pay interest on it. Bear with me on that though, but its been a long time since I applied for one. There IS always an option.

There's a lot you can do at home, turn down the heating by just one degree will save money in the long run. Ensure nothing is left on standby (switch off at plugs every night) and if you can use insulation in the home apply to see if you're entitled to a grant for free insulation (stop the heat escaping!). It all sounds trivial and won't help you immediately, but it all adds up.

Buy the basic brand food instead of branded or finest - same goes for bread etc. Instead of buying herbs for spaghetti bolognese get the plant and cut some off it while it grows on your windowsill...all inconsequential stuff that people don't normally think about but it helps.

W/regards to the bank - George is of course right. I've done it! I've moved my DD's to another basic account with no overdraft. I was advised to leave the monies going into the overdraft acct though so they didn't close it (in case I needed to use the OD at a later date after paying it off) but I think you DO need to move the income across to the new acct, definitely. Every penny counts.

charlie030882

:coffee: Just because I can't get off the reply to thread screen

charlie030882

Thanks for the suggestions Petrafyde, have just applied for JSA, Council Tax and Housing Benefit but because it is a nil income claim apparently it takes longer so just feels like one vicious circle. One thing that I have done is apply for a Natwest Step account but just waiting for the card to come through. I had previously got an account with the Coventry B.S but soon found that I really did need a debit card despite my good intentions to only use cash. I will take up your suggestions as well although the one about not leaving things on standby I don't do as I suffer from OCD and drive my OH insane with constant checking lol! Maybe a book club could be started on here (unless there already one) with books from the library - let me know what you think and ask anyone else who may be interested as I am sure that you know more people here than me.

scaredy_cat

a couple of job sites to look at - http://www.clickajob.co.uk/
http://www.jobsite.co.uk/
http://www.totaljobs.com/