How many current accounts do you use??

Jon_J

How many current accounts do you use and what for? Are you a single or multiple household income??
I'd love to know the best way of moving the money around to pay bills, housekeeping, clothes,etc, etc.

I'd appreciate your thoughts and best tried and tested methods formanaging the household budget and cashflow sheet.
p.s. I've done my budget so understand my income & expenditure. Now i need to put into practice.

Thanks.

j-baby-scotland

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crossleydd42

I use https://www.smile.co.uk and have one current account for paying my salary into. It pays a monthly amount into both a savings account for holidays and another one for general savings.It also pays a monthly sum into second current account which has all my direct debits for paying bills and the like. (I use a spreadsheet to work out the monthly sum). That way, I then know what spare cash is left to spend in the first current account. from time-to-time, I put a small amount of this spare cash into a smile mini-cash ISA.

I could use the smile credit card, but use one which pays 1% cashback.

With smile, interest rates on these accounts are not the best, but not bad.

It all works well.

K9cuddles

Well.. I used to have 3 current accounts all with online banking..

But after joining MSE.. I still have 3 curent accounts (but better ones!) and 2 savings accounts.

WSO

I have 3 current accounts.

HSBC - had since I was 12, keep for when I get cash or cheques to pay in.

Cahoot - opened for free £250 interest free overdraft but that's been reduced to £100 so looking to get rid of that one by gradually reducing the balance over the next year.

IF - have main current account (salary goes in this one), ISA and two savings jars in my plan... have them all together so I can get to my savings money same day if I need it. I'm able to rename my savings jars to reflect whatever I'm putting my money aside for.

carl310166

We have 4 current accounts,plus a Clubcard Plus account.

A joint A&L account,were both our wages are paid into,and all the direct debits come out of (except the lottery) on the 1st of the month.

On the 26th of the month x£ gets transferred into our old Barclays joint account,so it's there on the 1st,from which it gets transferred again into our individual "Pocket Money "Barclay accounts for spending on ourselves.We use our old Barclays joint account to pay any cheques into or Paypal money because very convenient for us to do that.

We also pay x£ on the 1st,into our joint Tesco Clubcard account,from which we do all our food and fuel shopping.

So,basically after the 2nd of every month,any money left over is surplus and can be transferred manually to our A&L savings accounts if need be.

We find this system works great for us in the year we have been doing it.

If the "pocket money" accounts run out,well tough !

If we overspend on the Clubcard account,there is a credit limit on it,but we try to clawback the following month.

Ivrytwr3

8!!!!

My personal account (salary paid in etc)
Account for our rental property (mortgage, property bills etc)
ISA
Joint account with wife (for own house bills and food shopping etc)
Joint Savings account
Joint Loan (£2.5K to pay)
Wifes personal account (salary paid in etc)
Wifes ISA

Bloody hell, didn't realise how many accounts, but it is easy to manage and we know what has gone in/come out immediately.

PS And in the middle of applying for a Tesco credit Card!

CharleneUK

I use two, but have four which I may close cos there is no point.

Also have a savings account and all the kids have their own accounts.

robert_h_2

possibly not the most efficient way to do it ... but this system works for me.

1 principal current account (first direct) that receives salary, from which ££ gets transferred to a second current account with another bank (smile) that pays all the direct debits. so whatever is left over in the 1st account can be spent with the knowledge that all bills are accounted for.

i have a savings account with both of these banks. smile has all the ££.
and a mini cash isa with a 3rd bank (halifax).

i'm in the process of closing an a&l current and savings account because i find them dire to deal with, and cant do anything with that current account online, like pay a bill or transfer money, all i can do is see the balance. i'd much rather have lower % with smile but actually be able to control my own money.

so i'm not hunting around for the best % rates (tho' opening the a&l was principally to get the £50 referrals) like a true money saving expert. but i'm happy with my system and the rates i have are not that far off the highest.

i've been tempted to close the first direct and open another smile account, mostly for even more simplicity (all my proverbial eggs in the one basket, the main ones at least, plus instant money transfers between my accounts) and a slightly better % rate on the current acct than fd. but i like fd, have never had any issues with them, and so for the moment i'm staying.

joe72_2

I have two current accounts. One for all the regular bills the other for what I call variable monthly spending e.g food, clothes, going out etc.
I have three savings accounts. One for the annual holiday and spending money, one for Christmas and the last one for emergency saving.
Finally I have a couple of longer term investment accounts.
This seems to work for me but I do review them every so often.

Judi101

We have 3 current accounts, 2 savings accounts and 2 ISAs.

1 current account each where our wages get paid into. These transfer each month money to a joint current account to pay the bills and a joint savings account to save for holidays or unexpected expenses. We also have a joint savings account that I use specifically to save up for annual bills such as house and car insurance, christmas, saving for a new family computer , slush fund for boiler maintenance etc. I keep track of the balance and how much I want for each thing via a spreadsheet. In addition to those we each have ISAs.