Tips for post bankruptcy.

beentheredonethatstilhere

Definatly get yourself a Credit Union account. They are great for saving and if you need a loan then they will make sure that you can afford the amount and you carry on putting money into the savings as well.

This will give you an idea about them

http://www.leedscitycreditunion.co.uk/

tigerfeet2006

Just giving this a bump for newbies

Tupperware_Queen

thanks for the pointer Tigerfeet. I wholeheartedly agree with the comments about back to the simple things in life. I have worked 80 hours a week in the run up to BR, before being made to see by a kindly CAB advisor that I was slowly killing myself.

am going to check out readitswapit...never heard of it before!
I already do charity shops - got a lovely jewelry box for my niece's christmas pressie the other day.

thanks!

Jubbly1868

Merry_Gentry wrote: »

Keep a daily spreadsheet of you income and expenditure - if you are using a Co-op account, often money is 'delayed' coming in and going out. If you run a daily spreadsheet - just saying Shopping -£45.00, Wages +£450, etc as a type of list you can see at a glance exactly how much money you have really in your account. It helps avoid those DD worries, and the potential strikes that Co-Op hand out.

We do exactly as Merry Gentry suggs so great idea. We keep a list of all our outgoings and credits to account in a book (OH not quite up on spreadsheets or PC!) and if we withdraw cash, we make a note of why. Same for any spends. Co-op is a bit slow on the online banking front and I have been confused a couple of times when their balance hasnt matched mine because we've cancelled a DD, but it still shows on the account but it isnt debited or returned (if you know what i mean). Bit of a heart stopping mo.
Another tip. We opened another account online with Cashminder and call it our DD account. Then when paid, easy to transfer sums of money between two co-op accounts and then we know where we are with the money we have left in our 'main' account. Its also a great relief to know that the DD money is already in place and we dont have to scratch around to find it.
If you do find yourself with a "1st strike" with Co-op that wasnt your fault or you misunderstood, I have found them very reasonable when you explain the situation fully and we were lucky that they applied a "gesture of goodwill" on our account. They were also exceptional when I had my card cloned on Christmas Eve of all times and far outweighed Nationwide in their Customer Service and speed of resolution (sorry drifted off the point a bit there!).....

Jubbly1868

asbestos2008 wrote: »

Thanks for the tips, having a few problems with insomnia at the moment. Since the decision was made to go bankrupt, I have been busy budgeting and planning for the future. That has been done now, filing in the forms and panicking now

Well done for making the decision. Are you using one of the Debt charities to help you? We couldnt have done it without the CAB. Although we lost out on a bit of money from Tesco shares, due to incorrect info being given to us :mad:, the lady at CAB kept us calm and on the right path with what paperwork we needed when etc.
We ended up not even having to have an interview with OR as forms contained everything... Good luck xxxx

diddly74

Merry_Gentry wrote: »

Keep a daily spreadsheet of you income and expenditure - if you are using a Co-op account, often money is 'delayed' coming in and going out. If you run a daily spreadsheet - just saying Shopping -£45.00, Wages +£450, etc as a type of list you can see at a glance exactly how much money you have really in your account. It helps avoid those DD worries, and the potential strikes that Co-Op hand out.

I do 2 different spreadsheets for our income and expenditure. One is just what money we have spent. Both OH and I keep all our receipts and I log in what we have spent and on what e.g. £20 at Morrisons for petrol, £26.83 at Iceland for food. I have also created various line and bar graphs and I can see at a glance how our spending fluctuates month on month. You can see which months cos me more in clothes (the run up to the new school year Jul and Aug) I also keep a notebook in my handbag and try and note down anythign we spend where they don't give you a receipt so those little bits don't get forgotten and I even collect all the parking tickets up and log them in too.

The other spreadsheet I use is for Bank Accounts - I have 3 one for DDs one for money to spend i.e. food budget and one that we put the savings in (the money we need to put by for car tax etc). They are listed side by side and every direct debit and the date it is due to go out is listed. I list anything I spend on the card and every withdrawal made. A withdrawal/payment is listed in green until I see it on my account (I check it online every day) Once it is confirmed paid then I change it to red. I can see when our wages are due in, along with child benefit etc and can predict exactly how much money should be in the account at the end of the month.

I can tell you how much it has cost me to clothe us, put petrol in the cars and even feed us this year. WE are no richer but I am far more organised since our Bankruptcy and I intend to stay this way!!!

Peter_Pan

Its been 3 years and although its not always been easy we have got into a great routine, i budget for everything monthly even the ones where we can't pay direct debit i treat it as though it is a direct debit from my bank book and the money builds up in the account ready for the bill.
We have used charity shops a lot and freecycle and have met some wonderful people in the process.
If we need something new we have to budget and save for it and it does make you think twice whether you really need it and if you do you appreciate it so much nore when you do get it.

We have also used approved foods but do actually find carefully shopping locally can be just as cheap, we use Aldi and Tescos for what we can't get in Aldi. We try and cook all our food from scratch which is actually much healthier as well as being cheaper as well.

We definately appreciate the simpler things in life like quality time with the family, cheap walks in the fresh air and the odd take away has become a real treat.

I think the biggest thing for us is that although we have to budget and save and can't always give the kids what they want or do perhaps as much as their friends do we feel in control which to us is important, this was something we lost in a spiral of debt which also leads to health issues and relationship issues.

It was a scary decision to make and one we still wish we didn't have to make but for us it was a life changing decision and our whole life and view of the world, finances have changed for the better.
We have definately come out the other side intact and wiser/ better people in alot of areas for the experience.

Jubbly1868

Wow diddly74 - and I thought I was organised. My dad worked for a major bank for 25+ years and he taught us from an early age to check receipts and particularly record and check cash withdrawals etc as he'd seen first hand how much money people lost etc because of a fault with the cash machine etc. I know things have improved but I still dont trust 'Link' service in particular. We withdrew cash from a bank that wasnt our normal one and they charged us. But we didnt realise at the time as due to a problem with that machine, it didnt warn us. After must investigation, it turned out that the 'Link' system that the banks have between them to enable you to withdraw from other banks without charge had "dropped out" ie. broken!!!! I wonder how many people were charged that day and didnt realise it because they arent as organised as us at checking their statements etc.........

Im trying to get OH to get involved in the process of recording receipts etc as he just spends and doesnt tell me (we have one joint a/c). Also he is much better than me at budgeting so it would be of real benefit if I had someone questioning my spending as im still struggling with being a 'want' rather than 'need' shopper. If I made the process of recording our outgoings spreadsheet anymore complicated, OH would have an even bigger excuse not to involve himself!!!!! Well done though Diddly 74 and if it wasnt for OH, i'd be following your great example.... It is a great way of seeing how much those odd trips to the shops for this or that cost at £10 here and there!!!!!!

tigerfeet2006

Bumping for the newbies

tigerfeet2006

For those of you with kids and you want to get them away from the TV/computer/Xbox/whatever and out in the open air and going for long walks and exercise try Geocaching

http://www.geocaching.com/

It's free and great fun and you get to see bits of your area that you didn't know existed.