Bank charges every single month (santander)

Dobbibill

Have you checked to make sure you are on the best tariff - although more limited on PAYG meters, you are still able to switch providers.

thejungles

"What help are you looking for if you don't want to post an SOA? We will be able to help you, but we need some figures as a starting point."

im going to do one just waiting until my wife is home to fill it out properly.

Dobbibill

thejungles wrote: »

"What help are you looking for if you don't want to post an SOA? We will be able to help you, but we need some figures as a starting point."

im going to do one just waiting until my wife is home to fill it out properly.

Be brutally honest with yourselves too - many people start off with a wishlist rather than a factual SOA.

This may be for harsh reviewing but will be better for you in the long run ;-)

thejungles

"What help are you looking for if you don't want to post an SOA? We will be able to help you, but we need some figures as a starting point."

im going to do one just waiting until my wife is home to fill it out properly.
by thejungles ” Be brutally honest with yourselves too - many people start off with a wishlist rather than a factual SOA.

This may be for harsh reviewing but will be better for you in the long run ;-)

We are always honest with money, to the point that the bills account is the only money we share, our own accounts are our own money and we even borrow and lend money to eachother and force the other to pay back (sounds harsh but we are both broke)

Ive decided that im going to close my santander account and transfer it to yorkshire bank and recieve the £150 moving bonus, but before i transfer would i need to try and get back some bank charges before i close the account or can i get these charges back even after i leave?

and be honest would you guys have just accepted the £64 "good will gesture" or hold out to try and get more?

Robin9

thejungles wrote: »

"£1400 a month mortgage?"

No we pay £700 each a month into a bills account. £700 is for the mortgage and the remaining 700 is for food and bills

We await with interest your SOA - on face value £700 for "food and other bills" is high

colsten

It sounds to me that you are making the big mistake of using your current account as a budgeting tool. If you continue doing that, changing bank will not make a blind bit of difference - you will always be at risk of spending money that you don't have. The available balance is not guaranteed to show how much money you have actually available to spend. Your bank can only record the purchases retailers have reported to them, and retailers don't always report all purchases immediately.

The only person who could possibly know how much money you have to spend is yourself. You need to keep a record of what you have spent, and of how much you are committed to spend (direct debits, SOs etc).

You can keep that record using pen and paper, or using personal finance software such as YNAB or MS Money etc. Using cash for casual spending is one way of controlling your spend - provided you don't draw more cash than you have available, that is.

As to getting your bank charges back: you should have taken the offer of the £64 as that was rather generous. Don't expect to get any more.

thejungles

Just looked into it all with the wife and both decided that paying in £650 each a month instead of £700 would still repay the mortgage and all the bills and give us £50 extra a month, thats a little bonus i suppose.

Dobbibill

That's a good start - there may be other areas to save money too.

Switching providers, haggling for a better deal, selling things you no longer use.

Keep looking for those gaps.

Robin9

As you have been paying £700 into your "bills account" and are now reducing it to £650 does that account have a healthy credit balance that could go towards the overdraft ?

thejungles

That's a good start - there may be other areas to save money too.

Switching providers, haggling for a better deal, selling things you no longer use.

Keep looking for those gaps.

Haha my house is getting emptier and emptier im always selling on ebay.

As you have been paying £700 into your "bills account" and are now reducing it to £650 does that account have a healthy credit balance that could go towards the overdraft ?

Unfortunately not, we recently got married so we have just paid that off. like i said before i have paid my overdraft off and my account is currently at 0 but i owe my mum £1000, i have set up a direct debit of £100 a month that gets paid to my mum and im getting rid of the debt that way.