Trying to save but accused of being a terrorist /fraudster :-(

redcard

Archi_Bald wrote: »

I am not saying that LeeLoo is going about her finances in the most efficient way, but you are drawing the wrong conclusion.

People with an awful lot of common sense, and superb financial savviness, often have way more than 18 accounts. For very different purposes to LeeLoo, however.

Some people on, and off, MSE have around two dozen current accounts alone, and some savings accounts on top. Though apart from LeeLoo, I know of nobody who has 18 accounts with the same bank, and they don't have these accounts for the purposes of "brown enveloping" their money. They will have no problem remembering their userids and passwords, and they will with 100% certainty have their own detailed records about their accounts.

You're correct. I was going for the cheap laugh rather than a social commentary. OP and those you refer to are obviously at different ends of the spectrum.

eskbanker

redcard wrote: »

You're correct. I was going for the cheap laugh rather than a social commentary. OP and those you refer to are obviously at different ends of the spectrum.

How much was the laugh and did you make a note of it?

jacques_chirac

Gromitt wrote: »

So how does your system work exactly? Say you are at a restaurant, you have to login to your bank account using your phone and check the balance of your "Going out" fund, order food upto the value of that, then transfer that money to your current account so you can pay for it using your debit card.

That would drive me completely insane. I just spend directly from my current account and enter it into my budget at the end of the day.

Makes a quick note in a book seem very simple!

innovate

Gromitt wrote: »

That would drive me completely insane. I just spend directly from my current account and enter it into my budget at the end of the day.

I would use my cashback credit card, which has a sufficient limit for my monthly spending needs and gets paid off in full each month. I make a quick note on my phone every time I spend something and compare that with my online credit card transactions every couple of days or so. I normally keep my actual monthly spend at well below half of my card limit so don't need to reconcile more often.

If I want or need to spend a larger amount at times, I do a proper reconciliation and confirm beforehand that I can afford the spend.

The only accounts involved in all this are my credit card and my current account that I use for bill payments. I have a plethora of other current accounts but they have nothing to do with my day-to-day spending.

The fact that the OP believes she needs more than her existing 18 savings accounts alongside her current account, and her apparent unwillingness to rationalise her approach, tells me that she is not in control of her finances and might well be heading for some sort of a collapse.

JuicyJesus

LeeLoo wrote: »

Different people work differently. I find it extremely useful and helpful. I rarely have to transfer money around and when I do it is simply, 1. log into account, 2. transfer into debit card. That takes a matter of seconds. Has worked better for me than anything else. Envelopes was even better but having had £700 in envelopes in my sock drawer I decided to put them in bank accounts with the same names as the envelopes had had.

Look, unlike others I'm not going to judge you for working the way you do, I think it's silly but different people work different ways, and at least there's reasoning around it.

That said, what exactly do you want from this thread? NatWest are allowed to not open more accounts for you - it is, as the Financial Ombudsman Service would put it, "a legitimate exercise of their commercial judgment". You don't want to change what you're doing - fair enough - and they don't have to open you more accounts, and they've said they aren't going to. So again, what exactly do you want?

opinions4u

Just remembered why I had so many savings accounts.

Stoozing multiple 0% credit card balances.

LeeLoo_2

Gromitt wrote: »

So how does your system work exactly? Say you are at a restaurant, you have to login to your bank account using your phone and check the balance of your "Going out" fund, order food upto the value of that, then transfer that money to your current account so you can pay for it using your debit card.

That would drive me completely insane. I just spend directly from my current account and enter it into my budget at the end of the day.

At the beginning of the week we will say, if we can afford it we will go out on the weekend. On Friday we will see there have been no unexpected outgoings, there is £50 in the 'going out account' and in the morning I will transfer £50 into the current account and then at the restaurant order £50 worth of food.

LeeLoo_2

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Look, unlike others I'm not going to judge you for working the way you do, I think it's silly but different people work different ways, and at least there's reasoning around it.

That said, what exactly do you want from this thread? NatWest are allowed to not open more accounts for you - it is, as the Financial Ombudsman Service would put it, "a legitimate exercise of their commercial judgment". You don't want to change what you're doing - fair enough - and they don't have to open you more accounts, and they've said they aren't going to. So again, what exactly do you want?

What I wanted was another way to continue doing what I was doing in another way. I saw that a Nationwide flexi account, as a poster described, would allow me to do that.

There are some bank accounts available in USA and Australia where you have just one account and within that account you can create as many virtual envelopes as you want and only spend from particular 'envelopes'. There is no similar product in the UK as far as I am aware.

MothballsWallet

Archi_Bald wrote: »

You must be b******y joking. It doesn't matter one iota that MS Money isn't supported any longer. It still works like a treat. Some people use it to manage hundreds of thousands of pounds in dozens of accounts. It most certainly can be used to manage your 18 or 180 or whatever savings accounts.

Stop trying to find excuses for not taking charge of the management of your own financials.

I've got the MS Money 2005 Sunset edition running on my Windows 7 system, and the data from my old PC carried across (thanks to my external hard drive).

The main difference is that the Sunset edition does not access the online services (news, information, program updates, currency updates, etc) but is perfectly usable otherwise.

There are many other alternatives, including GnuCash and AceMoney (to name but 2).

Only thing I need to be wary of is that I used my Hotmail/Windows Live account with MS Money, so I have to log in as "Work offline" each time I run it.

Archi_Bald

LeeLoo wrote: »

There are some bank accounts available in USA and Australia where you have just one account and within that account you can create as many virtual envelopes as you want and only spend from particular 'envelopes'.

There's your answer then - emigrate!