Current account to help us organise our money

MsHTJ

Hi there

I feel a bit naive about all of this, but I am not bank account savvy. In the past I had an Intelligent Finance account linked to my mortgage and within that there were 'jars' where I could organise my money to effectively have saving accounts within the one account. At present we have a pretty basic bank account.
We are not managing our money effectively. We have a main salary coming in at the start of the month, but other than that we have money coming in at different times every month (some payments weekly, some monthly, some 4 weekly). It is a bit of a nightmare to keep track of and often we end up relying on paying for things with credit cards as we have no idea what is in the account later in the month. It has meant that there are times when we over spend on credit cards and if we had a handle on how much we could spend in any given month then we wouldn't have overspent.
Does anyone know if there is an account that exists that is like the Intelligent Finance account that I used to have? (I think it was called an offset account) Or any advice as to how we can keep our money organised
Thanks in advance

DCFC79

MsHTJ wrote: »

Hi there

I feel a bit naive about all of this, but I am not bank account savvy. In the past I had an Intelligent Finance account linked to my mortgage and within that there were 'jars' where I could organise my money to effectively have saving accounts within the one account. At present we have a pretty basic bank account.
We are not managing our money effectively. We have a main salary coming in at the start of the month, but other than that we have money coming in at different times every month (some payments weekly, some monthly, some 4 weekly). It is a bit of a nightmare to keep track of and often we end up relying on paying for things with credit cards as we have no idea what is in the account later in the month. It has meant that there are times when we over spend on credit cards and if we had a handle on how much we could spend in any given month then we wouldn't have overspent.
Does anyone know if there is an account that exists that is like the Intelligent Finance account that I used to have? (I think it was called an offset account) Or any advice as to how we can keep our money organised
Thanks in advance

I don't know of an account like what you describe.

2 things

Maybe an account for where wages are paid into and any bills come out of that and a second account for normal spending eg days out, work out how much your monthly bills are and transfer whats left to your normal spending account.

You could even have an account for household bills and 1 for say car maintenance inc insurance.

Or maybe you need to look at your spending and cut back.

Tanative

MsHTJ wrote: »

Hi there

I feel a bit naive about all of this, but I am not bank account savvy. In the past I had an Intelligent Finance account linked to my mortgage and within that there were 'jars' where I could organise my money to effectively have saving accounts within the one account. At present we have a pretty basic bank account.
We are not managing our money effectively. We have a main salary coming in at the start of the month, but other than that we have money coming in at different times every month (some payments weekly, some monthly, some 4 weekly). It is a bit of a nightmare to keep track of and often we end up relying on paying for things with credit cards as we have no idea what is in the account later in the month. It has meant that there are times when we over spend on credit cards and if we had a handle on how much we could spend in any given month then we wouldn't have overspent.
Does anyone know if there is an account that exists that is like the Intelligent Finance account that I used to have? (I think it was called an offset account) Or any advice as to how we can keep our money organised
Thanks in advance

If you are wanting to get organised then two current accounts would be a strong way to go, get one which will give you cashback on your household bills with a provider and have your salaries and other incomes paid in to here. Then you could look at a second current account with another provider, or the same one, where you could set up a standing order to each month so that you have your "monthly allowance" for other spending etc.

If you have a low credit score and think that you will struggle getting two accounts etc then I know Santander offer an account called the Basic current account where you have one account where your money gets paid in to and you then have to transfer money from that account to a top-up debit card to spend in shops etc, however... you need to be aware that the top-up debit cannot be used for certain transactions.