Tales from the city

Igamogam

Switching accounts is not the minefield it use to be.........has to be done in a certain time and banks now much more accountable for any balls up. If you decide to save, make sure it works tax wise for you cos any interest is taxed. Maybe you need a more flexible saving set up if you dont want your cash locked away or any penalties imposed should you need to get your hands on it.

ani*fan

Thanks Igamogam, you're right, I need to take tax into consideration. It all needs some more mulling over and sums done properly.

I need to pay off my overdraft before I can switch bank accounts so with the new 0% interest card on its way, the overdraft will become the target debt. New goal - to pay off £1500 by the end November. I can only try!

I found 5p on the street yesterday. Paid it to my overdraft. :j

I got 10p interest on my current account. I've put this in my isa. Got 17p last month so that's in there too. This is absolutely a token gesture to try and get me into the habit of saving, just playing with pennies really but it's quite satisfying.

I am being messed around by someone who keep saying they want to buy my mirror for £15 then not showing up. How annoying. :mad:

Happy money saving everyone.

hiddenshadow

Just read your journal - excellent progress! The move sounds very promising.

I think what you choose to do depends on what motivates you - would you be happier seeing more interest being earned every month from a current/savings account (bear in mind that with regular savers you don't get the interest until the 12 months is up so the progress is delayed and then comes in one lump), or do you get motivation from seeing your debts go down? I've just had this debate myself (re: mortgage) and have decided that, for me, I want to see the debt number go down, even if it means I'm "losing" money (that I could earn with a high-interest savings account).

Regarding switching, I've switched banks twice and it's all gone smoothly - if you know that your DDs are all clustered around a certain time you could wait until they trigger and then switch so that there's less to pay out. I believe the banks have to pay any fees that result from missed payments during a switch, though, so even if something does go awry you should be covered.

The way I've handled it in the past is to transfer over whatever money I needed immediately (for debit card purchases, and any direct debit purchases coming up in the next 2 weeks) to the new bank account, then wait for everything to transfer across. You can always transfer over more money as needed - I started using my new account as my main account as soon as it was up (so that any DDs still tied to the old account would have sufficient funds).

Hope that helps!

ani*fan

Hi there hiddenshadow :wave:

Nice to meet you and thanks for the good advice about bank account switching. I'm not sure if I'd rather see the debts go down or interest building up. I guess I'm trying to think what the best thing is to do financially, which would undoubtedly be saving and accruing interest. But I have never been good at managing money and I don't feel very confident somehow. Maybe I should just try it and see? There is no rush right now as the final 0% card has still not arrived, so transfers have not been done, and my overdraft means no bank account switching for at least 6 weeks or so. It's all just ideas and plans at the moment.

Moving day is fast approaching. My stuff is all packed, the cleaning is almost finished and furry purrball is looking a bit nervous, as am I. I just want it to be done and go smoothly. Fingers crossed. And as though to confirm this move is a good idea, my boiler broke down AGAIN last night so I'll need to get onto that today. Good job I'm leaving tomorrow.

Happy debt busting day everyone.

hiddenshadow

ani*fan wrote: »

But I have never been good at managing money and I don't feel very confident somehow. Maybe I should just try it and see?

You never know until you try. You could always set things up to make it harder for yourself to access the money - register for online banking but keep the password hidden away, or deposit into a fixed-rate saver with exit penalties.

(That's one of the things I like about OPing my debt - once it's gone there, it can't be used elsewhere, so I'm not tempted by an extra £20 in my bank account to have a takeaway or something. The flip side is that you can't get the money back out if there truly is an emergency.)

Good luck with the move! Our dog was very nervous when we were moving (he trusts his routine), but settled in really quickly to the new place. And the cats love having places to roam and be Mighty Hunters (so they fancy themselves).

ani*fan

Well the move happened painlessly, everything went according to plan. Purrball settled almost immediately once he figured out where his food cupboard is and where the comfiest seat in the house is. Bless him, he's got his priorities sorted. I'm just glad to be here.

I'm a bit frustrated with the money saving though. There is still no sign of my new 0% credit card so the final transfers have not been done. :mad: My ppi payment has not come through yet although it's still within the 28 days, I wish they would hurry up though. :mad: I will also have to wait a month or so to get my deposit back on the old flat. :mad: It all seems to be going very slowly.

I'm still being careful with my budget though. I need to update my signature but am hoping to leave that til the end of the month and things are more settled.

hiddenshadow...on one hand I like the idea of locking cash away where I can't get it, on the other I think I should be able to do this without such an extreme measure. I just don't know. And my cat was also a mighty hunter in his day, he's an old man now though and prefers relaxing, all day long.

Happy money saving everyone.

hiddenshadow

ani*fan wrote: »

I will also have to wait a month or so to get my deposit back on the old flat. :mad: It all seems to be going very slowly.

I'd look over your contract again. Our landlady had 2 weeks to do her final inspection and make any claims against our deposit, and then she had 10 working days once she did her inspection to give us money back. (She kept claiming she was ill and couldn't inspect the place, and then was shocked when - exactly 15 days after we moved out - I sent her an e-mail stating we expected prompt/full payment of our deposit. She got all huffy and tried to claim she needed more time to inspect the place, but did sign off on something as the letting agency transferred our money back about 3 days later.) It may still be a month's worth of time, but knowing the timeframes that you can chase things up can hurry things along. I think ours said that payment was due 10 working days after inspection, and inspection had to happen within 2 weeks of vacating or it was assumed fine.

hiddenshadow...on one hand I like the idea of locking cash away where I can't get it, on the other I think I should be able to do this without such an extreme measure. I just don't know.

You could always try the non-locked away version and then open a regular saver (or something) if it turns out you need that extra security of not being able to access the cash.

Glad the move went well!

ani*fan

That's interesting about the deposit hiddenshadow. Mine is held by an external organisation called Letting Protection Scotland, where they have 28 days to return it and the responsibility is with the owner to prove that they might need to withhold some if they are not returning the whole amount. Thanks for the reminder though, I just had to log on and give them my forwarding details. Then I just have to wait. I'm not sure how long they have to do the inspection, so I'll have a look into that too.

fuzzyduck22

Glad you are all moved in and love that kitty is happy! My cat is the same, you worry about stressing them out with changes to their environment but as long as they have access to food, know where the treats are kept and have a comfy place to curl up they are quite happy things x

ani*fan

fuzzyduck22 wrote: »

Glad you are all moved in and love that kitty is happy! My cat is the same, you worry about stressing them out with changes to their environment but as long as they have access to food, know where the treats are kept and have a comfy place to curl up they are quite happy things x

That's so true fuzzyduck, as soon as he figured out where his food cupboard is and where all the places to hide are, he settled right down.

Well, all the details for the new card came through, I phoned them to do 2 balance transfers, 1 went through fine but they can't do the other one because they are linked to that bank. I so should have checked this, I'm quite annoyed at myself. However, it's still another big chunk of debt at 0% so overall not too bad, and the card that was transferred has a much bigger balance than the other one so that's fine too.

This means that my plan has to change, again. There is no point in looking into savings accounts or paying off my overdraft while some of my debt is still interest bearing. That card has to become the target.

Card 1 total £2442.42
I'm planning to pay this off by the end of January. I could do it faster but I need to be realistic about Christmas and what that's going to cost.

Talking of which, I have started my Christmas shopping already so that's 2/13 presents bought. :j I'm determined to make this as stress free a Christmas as I can manage and that's all about being organised.

Happy money saving everyone.