Teetering on the brink

DrunklMunkee

Gooooood Mornin' EatingBeans   (....vague Robin Williams reference, for those of us of a certain age)

So the sleep bank has been replenished. My spreadsheets have been updated & feeling quite DFWish. So, what do I do? put the kettle on, make 5 or 6 cups of coffee; fill my water bottle and tune in to Diary Land

I had another thought on why Chase may be the current account of choice. 

Going back to your earlier posts, @BadBookkeeper passed on some great advice about switching bank accounts and using 'burner accounts'. Well, the Chase account is perfect for this use. As I mentioned above - I understand they don't perform any credit checks, you can set up a couple of small Direct Debits (maybe your mobile contracts) and Lo! - you have a perfect account to use to transfer your banking. 

For me, I am quite happy with the current accounts I have, and so have no desire to transfer accounts. Besides I have transferred so many times in the past that I am probably no longer eligible for the deals.

However - now you have {hopefully) beaten Fluid, gained control of your current accounts & banished ODs from your life AND extended your 0% window - time to take advantage of the current account switches. There are many great offers available, and indeed - Sir Martin of Lewisville provides links in his weekly newsletter every Wednesday (Don't worry I know it is the DF elves that provide this info each week, whilst Martin is partaking of a Pina Colada in sunny Bognor) .

Anyhoo - there are various offers and the freebies come in all shapes & sizes. For me it was the monetary rewards I needed. So it was F1rst D1rect for me - they currently offer £175 free cash and a possible free overdraft or £250. If you got both of these - then WOW - your TSB OD is instantly about 80% smaller...much more manageable to reduce fully and REMOVE.

There are other offers that provide things such as magazine subs, television packages, cinema tickets etc. This may suit you & entertaining the DDs, but for now - I would concentrate on free money to get your interest payments down & more manageable - Then, once you have more control - revisit further transfer options as a way of boosting your value-added.

Wow - I didn't even realise there was a whole section on that - before visiting the Barclaycard.... However, the coffee runneth dry and is in need of replenishment and... well.... quite simply.... those clothes aren't gonna wash themselves. So will catch yer later.

Keep fighting the good fight.

DrunklMunkee

Note to self - must update footer. Debt free since June 2023 :-

EatingBeans

Loving the Robin Williams reference! I need whatever coffee you are drinking - your energy is awesome!

I will defo check out the Chase account. 

Super congrats on being debt free! That is a fantastic achievement. Do you have your own DFW diary? I would love to read your story.

And thanks for the nudge to read the MSE newsletter. I am sure I have signed up to receive it but don’t recall it coming through so I will go on the hunt to track it down. 👍

Can I ask what the thinking is behind removing the overdraft instead of leaving it open but never using it like the Fluid account? I am never quite sure if they count towards the debt ratios - any idea?

DrunklMunkee

Hey there @EatingBeans

so the wash is on, I am now on the cusp of a caffeine overdose & back for diary updates.

It certainly sounds like you are well on top of your current account situation. Like you I have 4 Current Accounts
1) to get paid in & provides info on my pension
2) to pay all the DDs & SOs
3) the chase a/c - which I transfer my monthly budget into for daily spends - supermarkets / entertainment / travel etc
4) an old account ready to do a current account transfer should the need arise (also linked to PayPal - which I find useful for matched betting, but that is a whole new conversation once things settle down )

The way you have described your CAs - I would probably keep the account which pays you back on your DDs. I am not sure, but I think Chase gives you 1% on your card spending so the supermarkets / entertainment / travel etc I mentioned above and not necessarily your DDs. I am not sure as all my DDs are on another account (This is probably going to be one of my 2025 DF actions, as I am thinking of getting the 1/2/3% return from the ShabbyNational)

I really envy your overdraft acumen. They have always been my Achilles Heel. So - I know you have it all well in hand and can move on. Other than one thing.... I mentioned in an earlier post about reducing our anxiety; and maybe,.. just maybe the whole overdraft/saving pots is providing you a little bit more anxiety than you deserve. 

What I found on my journey was that the more balls you are juggling, the higher the anxiety; so I looked to simplify and reduce the juggling balls as much as I could.

Therein, lies the answer to your question about why I would go for Barclaycard first. You actually hit the nail quite firmly and squarely on the head in your last post. The answer is......

Dopamine

The DebtFreeTrek is a long & winding road. We all lose our way occasionally and take our eye of the prize. But as long as you keep chasing the dopamine hits, the journey becomes a lot easier and (dare I say it..... I dare.... ) enjoyable...

Take the simple feeling of donating £5 to your daughter. I bet the dopamine rush was wonderful and you were beaming from ear to ear when you considered how nice it felt to share the dopamine hit & probably got a double shot of it as you considered how the new Beans is managing the fact that you could do this and still not compromise your budgeting. WELL DONE YOU.

And so, put simply - the BarclayCard is the lowest balance, and easier to get to a zero balance. Don't get me wrong - the whole balance won't reduce very quickly - but go searching for the dopamine hits. When the balance gets below certain levels take time to step back and marvel in the fact that the balance has gone down a £100 or £1000. But definitely take time to review and realise what you will have achieved.

Also, you will have hopefully done the MBNA Shuffle (lovely turn of phrase ) - so the £3700 on BC @25% is the next debt accumulating the most interest.

The NastyWest is the lowest interest rate and largest balance - so that is going to be the hardest to remove. That will be where dopamine hits are smaller & less frequent. Making the journey harder & less rewarding. {temporarily write this off as part of the "long haul" - you can't fix it immediately, so pay the minimum amount off by DD and forget about it until you can provide it more energy & funds - thus removing an anxiety marker}

However!!!! all the while that you are concentrating on MBNA & BC  you will of course be making the minimum payments on NW. So once you are in a good place on the other two and turn your attention to NW - the balance will have crept down without even thinking about it. Cue one great big dopamine rush, a celebratory chinese & £20 to the girls.   Budgets allowing

DrunklMunkee

Ooooh,

I also wanted to follow on from @ellen_vannin and the great info for Tesco Clubcard.

McDonalds do something similar - where if you leave a review at the website on your receipt - they provide discounts on your next order. Maybe useful for the girls

Also - you mentioned that there is a Greggs close by. They have an app, where if you scan each time you shop, then if you buy 9 items the 10th item is free. 

I am blessed/cursed that there is a Greggs close to my work. As I work nights, I am often found trudging to Greggs after my shift for "breakfast" and lost count of the free sausage rolls I have accrued

Also - They send you a voucher for a free doughnut, or something similar, on your birthday. If all 3 of you get the App - that's 3 free doughnuts

DrunklMunkee

LOL - so I think my feeling towards Overdrafts fall squarely on my past experience of them. As I say - I found them particularly hard to manage & extortionately expensive to run and so, for me, the lack of control was a high anxiety marker. What I will say though - is that my experience of overdrafts are from many moons ago, as I don't think I have used an OD for over 10 years. This was back in the day that they would charge you to arrange one, charge you to use one, charge you for each transaction when you used them AND charge you interest on top...... and be prepared to sell a kidney if you dared to go over the agreed limit. I am down to my last 7* kidneys  (* - Disclaimer - probably )

I just feel - that if you can squirrel off the 5/6 hundred quid into your own savings account - then not only can you treat this as your own personal & private overdraft facility; you get control over it rather than worry about if it will be withdrawn or not. PLUS - any interest made goes to the Bank of Beans and not the TSB.

If you had £600 in a chase savings account (currently paying 3.5%) this would give an additional £1.75 a month interest. So in effect, you have a "virtual Bank of Beans" overdraft providing £601.75 or a TSB overdraft offering £600 minus whatever interest accrued the previous month (probably £5 to £10) - so £590.

As to keeping it open - again this is down to personal choice, but I don't think the smaller overdraft limit affects the overall utilisation quite as much as the larger limits on the CC. Again - this is all personal experience, but the dopamine hit from reducing the number of juggling balls outweighed the relatively smaller hit to the credit utilisation.

Also - if you were to go the First Direct route, they could very well provide the free £250 overdraft. so part of the security blanket returned and we all like that four letter word.... free

EatingBeans

Morning @DrunklMunkee

Sorry, got to be short and sweet as a bit pushed for time.

I think you are right about Barclaycard being next - good idea in chasing the dopamine hit and highest interest. 

The £5 given to daughter felt even better when she had such a bad day yesterday. She bought herself a big bar of chocolate with it bless her - normally she squirrels extra cash away for books so I know the day must have been properly bad. Knowing I didn’t break my budget to give her the cash just makes it feel all the better. I also blow dried her hair for her to help make her feel better. I rarely do it any more now she is 16 but it still feels nice right? Aim is always for them to feel loved - it doesn’t always have to cost something.  I think I need to remember that more often when I have the urge to buy them something.

Switch to First Direct CA applied for. I hit the button and then remembered I had planned to wait until MBNA applied the increase to my limit first. Too late, oops. We shall just have to see if the hard credit check kills that. Note to self - write the plan down, and check it before I do something, so I remember which step to do when!

I love the idea of the “Bank of Beans”. I can see that name is going to stick in my head! 😁

One more quick survey completed this morning. Still determined to fit bits in even when I am busy! 🎉

Must dash. 👋

themadvix

Delurking to suggest you check the value of the commemorative 50ps before banking them- some are worth a lot and even the more common ones may go for more than face value.

redofromstart

I completely agree on Swagbucks, for me it was only a good return on time for the initial sign up offer.  A lot of the survey sites are the same, apart from Prolific, unless you wouldn't have been doing anything useful with the time anyway.   I cash Prolific out to paypal once it is over £6.

It made me smile too, you sending your DD the cash.  

EatingBeans

Good idea about the 50ps @themadvix . I doubt I have anything worth a fortune given that I just threw them all in a tin when I moved house (none will be mint condition) but there are quite a few in there so even a bit over face value might add up to a bit. 👍