Dear experts can you help a lazy man?

Bathman001

Looking for some friendly advice.

I'm basically pretty disorganised and a bit lazy so looking for something easy to manage my better half and my own banking.


We both have separate bank accounts with HSBC & Natwest which we don't really want to shut down but are looking for a joint bank account to pay a set amount/minimum amount of money into each month. From that we would look to deal with our household direct debits and pay some money into a savings account. Also all our household shopping etc would come from that. We are fortunate enough to be able to pay off any credit card we could use with the account.


Wishing to avoid opening accounts, cards etc all over the place so as simple as possible I think we would like

• a bank account which pays some kind of interest on regular deposits/cashback or something
• a Credit card with points, cashback or some kind of rewards (we will pay this off every month from bank account automatically hopefully)
• a regular savings account (set amount if needed) which pays a decent whack
• Anything else one can think of

Hope that makes sense.....and remember I am very lazy


Thankyou

le_loup

If you can be bothered, look up at the top of this page and see this reference:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/
Do your own research, you lazy git.

McKneff

le_loup wrote: »

If you can be bothered, look up at the top of this page and see this reference:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/
Do your own research, you lazy git.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::T

Loughton_Monkey

le_loup wrote: »

If you can be bothered, look up at the top of this page and see this reference:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/
Do your own research, you lazy git.

Better still, get your wife to do it for you.

Bathman001

Yeah thanks for the help!

In reply to Le Loup I did do some of my own research but many of the Bank accounts (or at least the descriptions of them) are predicated on paying in your salary direct something I wasn't planning to do if I can keep my existing account.

Many of the Fervant, stalwarts and devotees probably move accounts, etc around a lot, my reference to laziness is that I'm unlikely to do that. I was looking for a one stop shop kind of thing which doesn't seem to be as common.

I just thought someone else might have looked for and found something similar. Never mind.

psychic_teabag

Martin's guide does speak in terms of minimum salary to qualify for an account, but that doesn't actually apply in all cases. Eg the Halifax reward current account requires £1000 move in and out of the account each month, which Martin describes as requiring a salary of £14,700 but that's just nonsense. You can have one with no income if you have some spare cash that you move in and out enough times per month to make it to a total of £1000. (In fact I just noticed on a thread that someone has an account with an overdraft faciliity of £1000 and then he shuffles the bank's own money around to earn the reward !). Similarly the Lloyds Vantage current account.

I can't speak for all the accounts, though. Eg I think Santander only pay you the £100 bonus if you actually transfer some DD's over to it, or something. But most people recommend against Santander anyway.

Lloyds Vantage might suit your purposes - you can keep a healthy balance in there earning good interest, which saves you having to keep too close an eye on things during the month. It pretty much doubles as a savings account.

Bathman001

Thankyou.

Now I know it isn't about salary, but minimum payments in (for some accounts anyway) that opens the doors a little. I was looking at the Halifax as the £5 on the account and the Credit Card looks quite good but the Regular Savings isn't wonderful. I'll have a look at the Lloyds account too.

Quenastoise

Whoever you decide to go with, you might like to make sure that they provide online banking. Some banks also let you have various saving accounts, really useful when you are saving for different things and can transfer sums in and out with internet banking.

If you are into simplifying your banking, you might also like to set up direct debits for your credit card and utilities payments

sweetilemon

The tesco & M&S credit cards are good for points. Halifax websavers not bad for savings.

jambosans

Quenastoise wrote: »

Whoever you decide to go with, you might like to make sure that they provide online banking.

Unless the OP is planning to open a current account in 1973 I think they will be OK. I would be genuinely curious to know which obscure institution offers no online banking facility.

Eco_Miser

jambosans wrote: »

Unless the OP is planning to open a current account in 1973 I think they will be OK. I would be genuinely curious to know which obscure institution offers no online banking facility.

Harrods, apparently.

jinkster wrote: »

The bank do not offer any type of internet banking service which for me would be a complete pain in the neck.