Hate my bank and cant seem to get solvent

jonnywatson

Hello all,

This is my first post in this section....

I am finding myself getting more and more into trouble with my bank...

Some history about myself and my situation first:

I am 25 and in full time work. I have been to university and have a degree and the loan to go with it. Since i can remember i have been living in my over draft, i am with HSBC. At the beguinning of the year i got a new job and was pretty much forced to leave home as my parents split up. I am now living on my own and renting a small house near leeds. I am on a resonable wage, £30k grosse. But in my job i have to pay for expensise out of my own pocket then claim it back. Last month i spent £400 just in fuel. This month i am going to ask for petty cash from my boss for fuel. I have a number of credit cards, all of which are less then £200 but one has £430. My over draft is £1100 but at the end of the month i always seem to be over by another £300....i have asked HSBC to increase my limit but they have refused. The biggest problem is i seem to have purpetual charges. Since January i have been paying out to HSBC £100 plus...last month it was £175!! October will prob be the same :-(
On paper I should have £400 a month spare after all my DD's and commitments, but with HSBC charging me almost £200 and my expensis this is not the case.

I feel like i am loosing control of the situation. I have spoken to HSBC on the phone about this but all i got was a very rude women telling me i must be spending my money on things i dont need. I havent bought a DVD or a gadget in years, i may buy some music once in a while but thats it....from my statments its clear that when HSBC charge me, that puts me back over my overdraft or deep over my overdraft. I have asked if they would freeze charges for 6 months inorder to help but they are not inclined to do so......my other option i think is to change banks and not have an overdraft but slowly pay the hsbc account off....but there lies another problem....I was silly with money at university and due to this i had/have bad credit....i recently checked my credit score, all sections were 'green' but my number was low. The only thing i could see that was the problem, was the fact i was not on the electrol role. I have now sorted that out....

I know that it sounds like a self generated problem but I have no clue now as to how i can sort the situation out without taking drastic measures which will leave me jobless(sell my car) or move house again!

Any advise would be very much appricated!!

RAS

Hi

We really need to see your statement of Affairs to find out what is going on.

Regarding the expenses, if you are using your own car, your employer should be paying you mileage to compensate for the use of your car, the higher insurance, ,maintenance costs and reduced value.

You can reclaim your bank charges. It may be that what you need is to get a new bank account but until we see what is happening..........

Taucher

I am in exactly the same situation. I go over my limit of £1000 every month and usually go to being about £1300 overdrawn and get £50 - £150 charges every single month. When my pay goes in (£1450) I am usually at around £0 and so only have £1000 to use for bills, rent, repayments etc before I go overdrawn. On paper, after all my repayments I should have £650 left for food, going out, clothes etc but my overdraft just about covers my bills. This situiation all started when a friend died who was French and I went to her funeral (in France) and the expense pushed me over my limit for the first time. I have never been able to get back out of it

ANYWAY, what I have done is shifted all my direct debits and standing orders into another, dormant HSBC account with no overdraft and which is currently 19p in credit. My pay will now go into this account also. My overdrawn account will be paid off over 3 months by transferring money across (£100 each month) and I will not incur charges for going over my limit (£25 each time) - although I will incur interest for being over my limit.

I am not necesserily advising this as I have only just set it up and it is due to start when I get paid on the 25th, but it seems to me to be a good way of clearing up the situation.

Jesthar

Hi jonny,

Further to RAS's post, the Statement Of Affairs (SOA) calculator is here:

http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

If you fill it in, use the 'MSE' format results option, and then post it up, the lovely people around here will give it a good going over and see where you could make youself some savings

~Jes

jonnywatson

What do you need to see or know?

My salary includes £500 a month for the car....and i claim back 15p per mile.....car is costing me £342pm.

Rent: £525
Car: £342
Utilise: £50
Loan: £100pm
Cards: £120pm
Contents insurance: £10pm
Car Insurance: £112
Phone(Mobile only)/Internet: £55
Food: £100pm - Looking at reducing that by buying from farms and butchers.

So looking at that i am about £300 spare not £400.....but that does not include what i end up spending with work...which is why i guess i am going over and above...then HSBC is charging me....hmm....its making more sense now.....

I feel a little silly though now :-s

milliemonster

Jonny, use the link already posted to fill in a full SOA, also, you are only claiming 15p from your employer for petrol, you need to speak to the tax office as legally you can claim 40p a mile for business mileage from them so deducting what your employer gives you means for every business mile you do, you can claim back another 25p in tax, give them a ring now!

Can you take in a lodger to help with the rent?

pepe2008

Back in my days in the Bank ( Lloyds in the '80s ) we ran a 'budget account' which separated all your monthly expenses away from your main account in one lump on a particular date in the month dependeing on pay dates. We allowed an OD limit of 30% or so of the monthly total for 'hiccups' and it worked very well, until the Banks got too profit orientated and we stopped it!

If you, technically, have say £400 left after paying all your expenses then take that out in cash or move it to a separate account and only use that...pay a lump of it into your CC and carefully budget from that?

Most importantly get the account thats generating the charges into credit, make sure you know the terms of your account ref charging first though cos if they are going to charge you for everything anyway then you need to close it asap.

It'll take a bit of organising first of all, but I'm sure you can manage.

pepe2008

Just seen later posts.....you need to sort work out! Cant run a moped on 15p a mile, find out from Tax Office ( ? ) what you can claim....I was claiming 33p a mile in the '80s for a 1600cc car!!!

They should certainly be providing you with a float so that you are not suffering charges or interest on their behalf, cant you use a CC for work exp?

RAS

Jonny
Can you use the link that Jesthar gave you.

What that does not have is the required full breakdown of APRs and maximum limits for all the CCs.

Plus what your APR is on the OD and the limit on that?

ALFlem

Hi Jonny,

I have been there! First off, leave HSBC and get yourself out of the cycle. The only way, and trust me I tried a number of times!, is to get yourself a new account and re-start your finances. Start a re-claim and start afresh on a clean account.

It's not easy - I have relapsed slightly which is very frustrating but I can handle a £10 charge much more than £150 a month with HSBC!!

With the income, try to get petty cash off your boss. I used to be the same and leave it way too late to re-claim my expenses. if you can't try to stagger so that you get your re-bate mid-month compared to your salary so that you're not too out of pocket.

From your expenses, I know that living alone is expensive but my budget used to be £15 per week for food. That's £2 per day. I still work to that now. Could you buy in 2 weekly shops so that you can buy bigger packs of dry goods?

I know how hard it is and trust me, you've done the right thng coming on here. If your credit file is ok you should be able to get some good deals on credit cards etc which will help to pay off the smaller debts and the loan. I'm sure someone would say to get a cashback card and put all your work expenses on that so that you can make even more money from your work, especially by paying it off in full each month.

Hope this helps,

A

Horace

Instead of increasing your overdraft, have you thought about decreasing it instead?

I bank with First Direct (part of HSBC) and I have noticed that when you open an account they will give you £100. When I opened my account I was given a £500 free overdraft but times have changed so now I get £250 free (no interest) and interest is charged if I go up to the £500 limit.

Why not see if you can shift your credit card debt to a 0% balance transfer card - you may have to pay a small fee but at least you won't be hit by interest every month (don't spend on it though).

Please post your full SOA using the link provided so that we can see exactly what you are spending, where you are spending it and any interest rates that you are being charged.

Certainly, go to the tax office because your employers are taking the piddle - the mileage allowance according to the tax office is now 40p per mile. Maybe your employer could think of letting its employees have petrol cards to allow them to buy fuel (I don't know much about these cards to be honest with you as I have only heard of them but never used one).

I also live on my own and manage fairly well on less money than you are bringing home each month. I shop in Lidl, my local butcher and local farms. I batch cook and hardly ever buy take out food. It can be done - look at the moneysaving oldstyle board for tips on meal planning etc.