Utilising a number of accounts for your money - advice!

black-saturn

I use a current account which just has the petty cash in it. i.e. it has enough money to cover the bills and always has a float of about £300 in it. If it goes over £300 the money goes into the ISA. Both accounts are with the same bank.

fleetmonkey76

Multiple bank accounts are a great idea as long as you keep them all in good order.

I used to do this to make sure my mortgage money was seperated out.

One month I went over my agreed limit just before mortgage money was due to leave my account. One of the nice people at Barclays (once they had their three days @ £30 for over drawn for the month), transferred a balancing amount out of my mortgage account to the current account.

This led to them charging me £30 for bouncing my DD on the mortgage, and the mortgage company charging me £60 for a late payment.

Apparently they are allowed to do this under the banking act.

I am in the process of moving bank accounts prior to my Charge Refund Letter going out.

If you still aren't quite as good as you want to be with money management - and happy to move money round - think about multiple institutions as well.

crawley_girl

Wages from my main job go into my Barclays account
Wages from second job go into Lloyds account

All direct debits etc go from Barclays account and I effectively live off the Lloyds account.

Having once been quite rubbish with my money, I decided that I needed to keep money seperate incase it all went belly up and couldnt access it. Now that I am a bit more savvy, it makes more sense (to me anyhow) to have it all going into one place

Am currently in process of arranging all income to go into new A&L account, where all dd & s/o will come out of. I intend to set up a s/o to Lloyds account.

I also have an abbey account with passbook and no ATM card. I put about £100 into that on a monthly basis to cover MOT/ Christmas/ Birthdays/ Dentist/ Emergencies etc etc. Should I need to pay for any of the above then I use my Tesco Credit Card to pay and then withdraw from Abbey to pay off.

Having typed all of that out, I realise what a crackpot I am... but it makes perfect sense to me

Oh and I check every account online at least daily!!!

:heartpuls CG :heartpuls

laughing_cow

houseboatdream wrote:

I have an ING savings account - ING let you have at least six separate "pots" of money in different named accounts, you give them names yourself, so i have accounts for tax, my horse, the dogs, annual expenses such as presents and house insurance, the camper van annual running costs and saving up for holidays. Some of these have a regular DD to them, others I transfer money to when I have some left over at the end of the month.

Yep - I've got an ING account too. I think you are allowed 10 pots - I currently have 6. I'm trying to be more organised so have started to save for longer term stuff. Eg, I have to pay buildings insurance (shared with other flatowners) once a year, so I put the rough amount each month into my 'House' pot. I used to pay for this by juggling whatever money I had at the time so it will be nice to actually have the cash this year when the bill comes in. Thanks to this site, I'm slowly learning to be sensible with my money!

I've got quite a few bank accounts but I only really use my First Direct current account and the ING accounts. The First Direct account has all my direct debits. I also use this for my general spending because I've got MS Money so it's easy to see how much cash I have left once the bills go out.

I have a standing order to ING each month which is easy to alter online if necessary. I also make one off payments with any spare money. I've got other pots for Christmas/Birthdays, General/Emergencies, Holidays, Kitchen (although so far I only have £30 saved for my new kitchen - that'll get me a long way :rotfl: ). I've also got a 'Me' pot where I stash my spare cash from EBaying/doing surveys. This pot is purely for frivolities - clothes splurging or having a treat like a manicure - I have to have some joy even when I'm budgeting!

lazy&indebt

I personally don't see the advantage of having loads of accounts. I like to keep my finances as simple as possible...I have 1 current account and 1 ISA, both with abbey national. No OD on either.

I get paid 25th, all bills come out on the 1st and then on the 22nd of each month, all money in my current account gets automatically swept into my ISA.

I have a part time job and they pay me cash so (about £250 per month) I live off £150 per month of this and pay the remaining £100 into my account so it gets swept into my ISA.

Even my budget is simple! I live of £150 per month, or £5 per day for EVERYTHING otherthan bills. So that includes food, going out, petrol and anything else rather than setting £x for food, £x for petrol!

nevh2001

I find multiple accounts really useful. Me and OH have a joint account and our monthly salaries go in there. What we do then is transfer money out into the various accounts:-

- set amount in Cahoot Savings for annual things such as car insurance, mot's, holidays, season ticket at Blackburn Rovers etc.
- set amount to save (in a ICICI 5.15% savings account)
- Spending money for me in a current account(not a particulaly good account but i only use it for cash withdrawels)
- Spending money for OH (her current account)

We leave a set amount in the joint account to cover ALL bills, mortgage, food etc.

We've had this system in place for about 20 months now (thanks to this site) and it works brilliantly. We know exactly where we stand, what we can afford etc. Fortunately I am debt-free but OH did owe about 5k and now she only owes 1k, and its all thanks to this site.

Gemmzie

I have my current account with IF and savings jars for car tax, car insurance, bills etc. Which can be moved forwards and backwards easily.

Also have a regular saver with the Halifax, for tax credits money which parents put me in charge of because they are useless and would spend it :rotfl:

mountainofdebt

is all I can say!

My savings account has the following pots:

£15 goes to the car tax fund - as a result this year is the 1st time I can pay for 12 months tax without going overdrawn

£10 goes to my son's school uniform fund

£40 goes into our camping fund - original used to pay for this year's hoilday but will keep this amount up for next year's fees.

£50 for next year when hubby is master of his lodge and as a result we will be expected to go out alot more.

All are on DD

Alot at the moment but it's well worth it when those bills come in but you know you have the money to pay it already.