Perhaps I should have introduced myself first!!

chivers1977

Hi lizzie,

No I work for a Bank!! It is a cut and paste. Sorry should have said - probably had a toddler pulling at me at the time!!

Floss

many years ago (when I was a newly married DFW in the 80's) Midland Bank used to have a "budget account" just like that, but you didn't pay any extra into it.....just the monthly amount to cover the annual total of bills. Now, why don't the banks do this nowadays.....oh, I know why, so they can rip us off with their stinging charges when we miscalculate & go £0.50 O/D :mad: :mad:

Baggiebird1nil

We have been with Secure Homes for over 20 years now and I think they are wonderful. I know they cahrge but if my husband is off work sick he only gets SSP. Trying to pay a mortgage and live on that amount is impossible so it's nice to know that if he is ill ( he's had a couple of nasty accidents at work over the years as he is a forgeman) all the major bills are paid so we don't have to worry. Once a year they send you an update and let you know if you have underpaid or overpaid. Our gas and electricity bills have gone from £800 last year to £1039 so they have spread the 239 difference over the next 12 months.
Rant over and I can see where you are coming from but if you are crap at budgeting these really are the people.

aimme13

hi and welcome..........just a thought, do you need 2 cars???....i know how expensive they are to run so double the cost, i would imagine thats where a lot of the money is spent......tax/insurance/servicing/repairs/AA/mot/petrol...
i know i cant live without mine but is 2 really essential??

Lizloz

Baggiebird1nil wrote:

We have been with Secure Homes for over 20 years now and I think they are wonderful. I know they cahrge but if my husband is off work sick he only gets SSP. Trying to pay a mortgage and live on that amount is impossible so it's nice to know that if he is ill ( he's had a couple of nasty accidents at work over the years as he is a forgeman) all the major bills are paid so we don't have to worry. Once a year they send you an update and let you know if you have underpaid or overpaid. Our gas and electricity bills have gone from £800 last year to £1039 so they have spread the 239 difference over the next 12 months.
Rant over and I can see where you are coming from but if you are crap at budgeting these really are the people.

My Oh only gets SSP too, and when we were with SH in the 1st house we lived in, he was off work from March to November and they covered all the bills.

It turns out that they're a lot cheaper than insuring privately too, so I feel we're saving money anyway.

Yes we do need two cars.

I run my own mobile disco/karaoke business and the one car (Ford Galaxy) carries all my equipment, whereas the fiat is our run-around car.

In_Search_Of_Me

Just wanted to say Hi & welcome!! Like others I wouldnt pay for a service that I could do myself & you can make interest on DDM account while payments are waiting to go out if you have them all separate from your day to day account but its your choice! Can highly recc a spending diary!! Quite scary seeing how much you waste!! (or was from me). Have you looked at the reclaiming bank charges thread?

Lizloz

fishface-69 wrote:

Just wanted to say Hi & welcome!! Like others I wouldnt pay for a service that I could do myself & you can make interest on DDM account while payments are waiting to go out if you have them all separate from your day to day account but its your choice! Can highly recc a spending diary!! Quite scary seeing how much you waste!! (or was from me). Have you looked at the reclaiming bank charges thread?

No I haven't yet.

We had a bank statement through the post today and there were about 3 or 4 different charges for £34 for unpaid DD's.

It really annoys me because if I was the bank I'd say, right the payment can't go out today, but we know that the money will be there tomorrow, so we won't charge the £34, but I'm not the bank am I.

Stupid banks....I hate them.