Think money bank accounts

Donnak74

Again this morning Thinkmoney have advised that there is a problem and although its payday for most today, we cannot access any money.
They charge £17.50 a month to manage your account ensuring that bills are paid and that you dont go overdrawn. Does anyone know of any other bank that provides this service?

JuicyJesus

None. But it's something you can easily do yourself for free with most banks and pen and paper.

Don80

Hi

I would agree with the above, this is expensive. The best thing is to open a bank account with a "proper" bank, if you are rejected for this, ask about opening a basic account.

Personally I use 2 accounts, one is where my salary goes, the other is where all my bills come from. When I am paid I transfer the money from bills over, and that means whatever is in my main account is mine to spend.

Santander have an interesting basic account which splits your money. You have your account with a cash card, bills are paid from that. You also get a top up visa debit card, so you would transfer your spending money to that, and that's a bit like a second account.
http://www.santander.co.uk/uk/current-accounts/basic-current-account

Hope this helps

JuicyJesus

In addition to what Don80 says, you could also open a prepaid card account (e.g. Monzo) which you transfer your spending money into. This gives you the advantage also of having a fixed amount of spend, which might help you budget.

It is pretty much exactly also what ThinkMoney is. They do very little themselves and charge money for it.

dunstonh

They charge £17.50 a month to manage your account ensuring that bills are paid and that you dont go overdrawn. Does anyone know of any other bank that provides this service?

Is there any reason why you cannot run your bank account yourself?

A very common method, which I use myself, is the budget account or number 2 account option.

On or just after payday, you have a standing order that goes from your number 1 account to the number 2 account. All your fixed bills come from the number 2 account and the standing order should reflect the total of those (rounded up to allow a bit extra to build up). Then what you have left in your number 1 account is yours to spend over the month of lifestyle and bills which are not fixed (such as groceries).