Piggy banking technique help please

jgallcash

Hi,

My partner and I currently pay all bills and mortgage from one joint account. It's effective in that money is paid in via standing order with plenty of time to ensure all bills are paid by direct debit.

It is however quite difficult to track different bills that have been paid to monitor them throughout the year.

I like the idea of the piggy banking system whereby we open more joint accounts and use them for specific areas such as mortgage, electricity, food etc.

Does anybody know if the banks might be reluctant for us to do this in any way?

More importantly if i open up further accounts with my current bank will they conduct credit serches as a matter of course and therefore create lots of searches on my credit file thus affecting my credit score?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

sarahs999

I don't know, but it sounds much more complicated to me to do all the admin for all these different accounts. Can you easily look at your account online? I'm with first direct and you can chose to look at your acount by A-Z, meaning that if you want to see how much you've paid over the year for say, gas, you just put it all in alphabetical order nad look. Imagine the time wasted waiting for money to clear into different accounts in time for bills to clear.

jgallcash

I understand what you mean but with Yorkshire bank you can rename accounts and see them all in one page.

I do also have an account with FD and although they're a better bank i dont like the online banking set up very much.

I know it sounds like a lot of work but this kind of system would suit me loads - you could call it OCD or something like that.

I'm happy that i will be opening these accounts - i suppose i'm just asking the last part of the question really which is.

"if i open up further accounts with my current bank will they conduct credit serches as a matter of course and therefore create lots of searches on my credit file thus affecting my credit score?"

sarahs999

Well, I'm no expert but I doubt your current bank would need to do searches to open more accounts with them. They already know what they need to know. certainly when I've opened extra accoutns with FD they've just done them over th phone, no need for any searches.

jgallcash

Anyone else any thoghts on this?

heppy23

Hi, I have tried various methods of piggy backing and the basic problem I have struggle with is that there is always X amount floating around trapped within the BACS system.

To get round this you need to "prime" all the accounts with money to cover the money that is floating around. This can be quite a lot of money - the more account the more money in the priming and floating around.

I have given up as all the banks seem to be dragging their heels introducing the faster payments system.

My solution is therefore currently to have one current account into which my wages go and from which all my DDs and standing orders come out from. I am opening another current account (with the same bank) where I will transfer money for my weekly spends (petrol, lunch money). Money transferred between the two accounts will go instantly.

leviathan

I know I could do this with natwest. The E-Savings account can be opened online at a whim if you already bank with them and you can hold several. I highly doubt that a credit check will be done since it offers no overdraft service, you'll be rated on internal information.
Sicne it's a savings account it pays interest but you can also do DD's and SO's from it.

MrsTinks

If you open with more than one bank then yes they will do searches... your own bank might not allow you that many accounts open to be honest... I wish more banks did do proper "piggy" banking - I'd love it too!
In the place of that I have resorted to excel spreadsheets And yes I think I am bordering on OCD... :rotfl: My husband grumbles and goes off to his 360 when he sees me fire up the spreadsheet at the start of the month
But he knows it means I know immediately if a payment hasn't gone out like it should! (and any payments that I don't know what is I immediately look into too!)

sarahs999

I know OP has said it suits them but I can't get my head round it - isn't it just easier to have one account that everything goes out of, then check it every day? DDs the same each month, so no surprises.

Heppy's problem with BACS might be solved by having all the accounts with one bank, as transfers happen instantaneously between accounts.

lindsaym22

I have 5 accounts at the moment and each one has a different purpose. One is for every day living, one for a lump sum of money I recieve, one for savings, one which my salary goes into and one is a Euro account for when I´m abroad! All of my bills come out of one account so I can regularly keep track of when they are supposed to come off and when the actually do. I made myself a "bill sheet" which just a basic spreadsheet : it names the bill and then details which month and in which part of the month it is going to come off my account. This way, I can make sure I have enough money in the account at the beginning of the month to cover all the bills for the month to come. It works for me anyway. Handling the accounts is really easy. 2 of them are just online accounts which means I can easily transfer money between all of them - it´s nice and easy and direct debits come off as normal.

~evanesco~

We have 3 current accounts, 8 e-savers and have just opened a joint account. This is the only way for us to manage our money effectively. Separate it all out for where it needs to be on payday, as well as keeping a jar of money with bus fares, brownies subs and dinner money in. Once a week we draw out £90 for the household grocery. Nothing else is to be touched. On payday we each take £60 as our 'pocket money' for the month. Kids get theirs paid in to an e-saver each week. Hopefully this (after Xmas) will help us get debt free and save for our wedding. By using the Natwest debit card, we'll be aware that what we are really doing is reducing our wedding fund, ahould make us think twice. By using the Joint account debit card, we'll have to think 'where is this money coming from, what ISN'T being paid to fund this purchase' etc I'm pretty confident this will curb our spending habits.