Moving onwards, the family home and making it MF. LP diary pt2

Sleepy_head_2

I love reading your diary Lilac, such inspiration! OH and I are the same with our accounts, although I'm guilty of persuading OH to separate money...he was perfectly happy with one account before! I have a reward account for wages and all bills etc, from this I have a monthly standing order to an HSBC account for all things car related, another Halifax account for Holiday saving, an ISA for general saving and so it goes on. OH has the same! I find it so much easier to work this way...

Sleepy head

LilacPixie

ooo interesting wantabetterlife... I wonder if its product specific?? its listed as a charge in our kfi... Are you tied to a deal?? no £10 charge means i will amend the term if i can...

sarahevie

I agree with WABL we weren't charged in Dec either. It's not on our KFI as a charge. Our mortgage was taken out in 2007 (don't know if that makes a difference, ours is a ten year fix, no tie ins after 5.)

lincoln-potter

LilacPixie wrote: »

OK here is the 'scores on the doors' with regards what accounts we have.

Santander joint account (A&L) my wages
Santander joint (Abbey) - my DLA
Bank of Scotland joint reward - DH wages
RBS DH's account - child benefit (this has his student overdraft)
RBS Joint - empty, mystery shopping goes here
Nationwide joint - empty used for holiday spends abroad but not free now
Halifax reward mine - cycle 1k for reward from BOS joint
HSBC mine - opened for £50 cashback. TCB/Qu1dco etc pays into this and use the debit card for online buys/glitches. monthly savings for gifts goes here too.

Now it is no wonder I have no idea how tight the month will be as I have zero idea what money is availible and in what account..

We need a simpler plan.. Off the top of my head I am thinking of closing both santander accounts and shifting my wages plus DLA money to my halifax account.. If I did that I could set up a FP to the RBS joint account and use that to OP mortgage back to halifax. I could also use the RBS account for matched betting if I ever get around to doing it..

Nationwide joint account will be closed too. it means rather than having 8 accounts in either joint names or single names we would have 5..

Ohh that is complicated!

I had about 6 accouns before (3 current, 1 web and 2 long term savers) but they were all with Halifax so I could at least see them easily online at once. Only the other day I closed them down so I now have just one current and one ISA. Simple and easy to keep on top of.

The thing i found also annoying with so many accounts was keeping a positive amount in each and being annoyed if for any reason one went overdrawn despite actually having the cash to cover it.

No idea which bank is best but I have always used Halifax since i was 4 (when my mother set my account) and had the view that the history must count for something.

cha97michelle

We have a lot of accounts too, but not current accounts.

• Main joint current acct that DHs salary and Child benefit/tax credits go into.
• I have a current acct for quidco/mystery shopping/amazon sales
• DH has an unused NW current account needed for moving money about online, not needed or used now.
• I have 8 savings accts through ING for budgetting - kids, cars, bills, new appliances, hols, xmas, pets, new clothes.
• We both have a current ISA and isa transfer accounts.
• DH has an online saver too with not a lot in as we are making the most of my tax free status.
• I then have my zopa account i chuck odd little bits in which has about £300, but i see that as a long term investment. I would love to have the max of £25k in there when we are paid off earning 8-11%.
• We then have for the kids their trust funds, plus they each have a savings account.

It does take a lot of mental energy to keep track, so i am not surprised you are finding it harder to do with a new baby.

My new system since Christmas is to move across into the savings accounts at the start of the month what i need to pay annual or tri-monthly expenses. so £635 goes to those ING accounts. Then, if i buy something from one of those categories, the money gets transferred back to the main current account and then gets paid off the CC or to not affect the cash balance.

This so far is working very well for us budgetting, and if i do most spends on the CC i can look once when the bill is in, and move the money from the correct account to pay it.

lincoln-potter

cha97michelle wrote: »

We have a lot of accounts too, but not current accounts.

• Main joint current acct that DHs salary and Child benefit/tax credits go into.
• I have a current acct for quidco/mystery shopping/amazon sales
• DH has an unused NW current account needed for moving money about online, not needed or used now.
• I have 8 savings accts through ING for budgetting - kids, cars, bills, new appliances, hols, xmas, pets, new clothes.
• We both have a current ISA and isa transfer accounts.
• DH has an online saver too with not a lot in as we are making the most of my tax free status.
• I then have my zopa account i chuck odd little bits in which has about £300, but i see that as a long term investment. I would love to have the max of £25k in there when we are paid off earning 8-11%.
• We then have for the kids their trust funds, plus they each have a savings account.

It does take a lot of mental energy to keep track, so i am not surprised you are finding it harder to do with a new baby.

My new system since Christmas is to move across into the savings accounts at the start of the month what i need to pay annual or tri-monthly expenses. so £635 goes to those ING accounts. Then, if i buy something from one of those categories, the money gets transferred back to the main current account and then gets paid off the CC or to not affect the cash balance.

This so far is working very well for us budgetting, and if i do most spends on the CC i can look once when the bill is in, and move the money from the correct account to pay it.

wow thats a fair few accounts but the theroy sounds good. WOuld be too much maintenance for me.

One thing I have no real idea on though is Quidco. How do they make their margin unless the things bought from there are marked up?

LilacPixie

lp - you don't actually buy from quidco.. quidco just links you to theretailers website and you get a 'commision' on purcases. For example say we both bought contact lenses from cortact lenses r us or whatever the retailer was... you would pay £70 for 6 months
supply. I would also pay the retailer £70 but i would get £7 into my quidco account because the retailer pays quidco for sending you over. Since Feb 08 we have 'collected' just over 2k

cha97michelle

Lilac is right - no con. You just pay quidco £5 membership fee to join, and that is how they make a profit. The £5 comes out of commision you earn from buying stuff, so no outlay from yourself at all. I have had not quite as much as Lilac, but have had a fair few hundred pounds and won a christmas comp on there the other year with some of the flyladies, and we won £80 worth of wilkinsons vouchers each which came in so handy.

lincoln-potter

LilacPixie wrote: »

lp - you don't actually buy from quidco.. quidco just links you to theretailers website and you get a 'commision' on purcases. For example say we both bought contact lenses from cortact lenses r us or whatever the retailer was... you would pay £70 for 6 months
supply. I would also pay the retailer £70 but i would get £7 into my quidco account because the retailer pays quidco for sending you over. Since Feb 08 we have 'collected' just over 2k

Ohh i see. Sounds almost too good to be true.

cha97michelle wrote: »

Lilac is right - no con. You just pay quidco £5 membership fee to join, and that is how they make a profit. The £5 comes out of commision you earn from buying stuff, so no outlay from yourself at all. I have had not quite as much as Lilac, but have had a fair few hundred pounds and won a christmas comp on there the other year with some of the flyladies, and we won £80 worth of wilkinsons vouchers each which came in so handy.

Sounds like I need to have a word with the OH to get her to change how she does her online shopping.

LilacPixie

With 2 cars, 2 mobile contracts, utilities B&C insurance plus life insurance plus silly things like I buy nappies/wipes from boots in bulk free deliver with £45 spend plus at one point 8% cashback but now down at 1.5% for existing customers.. it mounts up quick.. I must admit I have also taken advantage of the £10 cash back for 1st online grocery order from all that deliver her for both me and DH. I also do the getting insurace quotes through that..