A little constructive advice please.

chubbs1981

Hi All,

So general outline is. That i have a c.2k overdraft and around a £1200 CC bill (an old amount and a bad MOT )

Now in the last 12months my partner and I have cleared our Halifax JA OD of 1k which was costing us £1 a day. She has cleared her OD and CC with the help of a timely tax rebate. I now have her set up with a £250 limit on her card which is her spending money for the month (more than enough for most in my opinion!) she has a standing order to pay this off in full monthly on pay day and has agreed never to spend on her debit card except for the odd occasions where she will need the odd £10/£20 in cash. This appears fingers crossed to be working.

as i take her to work she pays £60 a month onto my CC to cover fuel and running costs. (roughly 1/3 or monthly cost including tax mot and insurance) I did a balance transfer to a 12month interest free deal in May which she is chipping away at.

I have some outstanding bills to HMRC as they 'lost' one of my previous tax returns. despite me handing it in paying the bill and them having all the others they have not go this one. Needless to say as it was some years back i don't have all the receipts so the deductions were not as high as i first claimed so i'm left with a small amount due. This will be cleared early 2014 which i'm looking to divert to my CC.

My OD! just never goes down i've budgeted and can't stick to it. just never seems to get anywhere. Has anyone experimented by using prepayment cards? I'm looking for a similar system to above with the mrs CC. so on pay day i load up with my allowance and leave my debit card in the cupboard.

Any other suggestions? Ive chopped the gym membership, scaled back the phone contract.

Tixy

What part of your budget don't you stick to? Is it that your budget is unrealistic? or that you have compared your actual spending to budget and are spending more unnecessarily in some areas?

If you don't know where you are overspending I would keep a spending diary for at least a couple of months.

What about a second debit card account with a basic bank account that you do a standing order payment of £x per month and then only use that debit card.

Not sure about your credit card plan for wife. Is the standing order for £250? what if she only spends £200 on it and it puts the account in to credit? if that happens regularly they may well close the account. She'd probably be better with a basic bank account and debit card, then any underspend she will have left in the account for another month.

Either of you could also use prepayment credit cards but there are fees for using these so probably basic bank accounts would work better.