Joint Account

Forthey

Hi Everyone,


I am just looking for some advice, myself and my husband have both banked with our own separate accounts since we were young so when we got married we never did anything about setting up a joint account and we have muddled through our finances. However now we are getting older and fed up of wasting our money and not managing it properly have decided to set up a joint account, where both our wages will paid into and all our Direct debts will come off them we will put a lump sum about £500 a month into a savings or ISA. I've done the figures and it looks like between the two of us we have been flittering about £1000 a month on god knows what!!!
So what I'm really looking for is some advice on where we should open a joint account. I bank with RBS but never been very fond of them. My husband banks with Lloyds BUT there is no local branch for them in about 4hrs drive.
I'm thinking Sandander but just looking for some sort of reassure before I make the leap.


We rent our property and have loan with Lloyds which we are paying off, we also have about £3000 in savings.


Many Thanks in advance for your help.

xylophone

Santander 123 might suit you very well and save you money?

http://www.santander123.co.uk/?gclid=COCO_sHrs8ECFfHKtAodXhwAgA

CLAPTON

Santander may well be suitable (no need to close the existing a/cs)


but if you are 'wasting' 1000 a month you also need to draw up a proper budget and find out where the money is going (a spending diary each is a good idea of a few month where you each write down EVERYYHING you spend and review regularly




if you have a loan paying interest then use the savings to pay as much as possible off : no point wasting even more money

Forthey

Thank you very much for the replies. We have sat down over the weekend and made up a budget, all incoming and all out going. We are going to set up a regular payment to go into savings.


We have a loan which we used for our car, would we be better putting our savings twds paying that off? We really want to save for a deposit for our first home so its given us the motivation to tighten up our spending and knuckle down on saving.

Archi_Bald

Forthey wrote: »

We are going to set up a regular payment to go into savings.


We have a loan which we used for our car, would we be better putting our savings twds paying that off? We really want to save for a deposit for our first home so its given us the motivation to tighten up our spending and knuckle down on saving.

First rule is to pay off debts before you start saving, for the simple reason that you will get a lot less interest on your savings than what you pay for your loan.

When you have paid off your debts, make sure you put your savings in the right place. At present, that is current accounts, not savings and not ISAs.

You would start with the TSB Plus account, perhaps one sole one for each of you, and one joint one. But don't even go there until you have paid off your debts.

Look into also getting Halifax Reward accounts, in addition to your other current accounts, as this can earn you £180 a year. Look for the thread on that account for more info.

grumbler

Forthey wrote: »

...However now we are getting older and fed up of wasting our money and not managing it properly have decided to set up a joint account, where both our wages will paid into and all our Direct debts will come off them we will put a lump sum about £500 a month into a savings or ISA.

I don't see why you need a joint account for this, but it's OK if both your credit histories are equally good or bad.

We... have loan with Lloyds which we are paying off, we also have about £3000 in savings.

• Should I Repay Debts or Save?