Bank charges

[GilmoreMe]

I want to start by saying I am terrible with money, budgeting, keeping track of money and generally all things money. I am trying to get on top of this and be more money responsible. My husband and I pay a percentage of our wages into a separate account for household bills.
I have another account that I use for my own bills/personal spends/ kids etc. It's this account that is causing me issues.
I don't have an overdraft facility on this account however they let me go overdrawn every month, never by much, always less than £100. Then they will stop any payments being made but that is enough to cause bank charges EVERY month. The charges range from £20 - £80 a month.
I've just gone through statements and they have taken £400 in charges since Dec 2018. Each time a charge is taken I'm already overdrawn so the charge makes the situation worse.
Is there anything I can do to try to get the charges reversed? I'm being destroyed by bank charges every month and trying to play catch up which is impossible.

Look at the t&c's of your account and the list of charges/penalties/interest rates. Banks will normally allow an unauthorised overdraft for a fee but it will be capped. In your case at £100. There will be a fee for this unauthorised overdraft and there will be fees for transactions that can't be processed due to insufficient funds.

I think that there are now restrictions on the fees that can be charged, so I would look into this. Maybe on Martin's money saving website. I would have thought the banks comply with this though. From memory I was charged £30. Now it is £5 per day if I don't bring my account to with the agreed overdraft by 11.45pm. I will then only incur interest on the balance. I receive a text from the bank with my balance as soon as I'm in the unarranged overdraft to notify me. I'm with First Direct.

£400 is high. Can you change banks? Or can you get text message notifications with your current bank account? Do you have time to use software such as Microsoft money to manage your cash flows?

I would contact them in writing and tell them that the charges are causing you great financial hardship. If by any chance you or your husband are on minimum wage, mention this. Don't say in the letter that you are bad at budgeting, but that bank charges make it impossible to budget.

They should refund those charges. If you need quicker action, tell us the name of your bank (not the branch) as I know of people who've contacted the head of the bank directly and it's been dealt with within 24 hours. (Obviously it's an assistant who deals with it!)

I bank with hsbc.
My other accounts don't have an overdraft facility and they don't let me go overdrawn by a single penny. Ever.
I know it's my own fault for going overdrawn but it's so hard if something needs paying to just dip into it if you know you can.
I really am trying to be better at managing money and I'm embarrassed that I let this happen every month.
I've gone through statements for the last year now and have been charged £731 over the year. That is an awful lot of money for us.

To be honest I think the easiest way to stop this would be to start managing your money better now. You're choosing to make a payment that you know you don't have the money for, so don't make it! Sorry to state the obvious but your post was a little 'woe is me ' when the only person to blame is yourself!

It's very hard though, Desmondo, if you don't have much money and the bank takes off bank charges which means the next month is even more difficult.

[email protected] is the email address you need.

This is the link to the complaints department.

How on earth is it woe is me? I started off by owning my ridiculous inability to effectively manage my money. That is no one's fault but my own.
The fact is bank charges are making the situation harder and harder to manage. And it's snow balling

You can ask HSBC to take away the overdraft facility, so that things will decline when you've got no money. They should do it quickly.

Also check how much you've been charged since they changed the fees last year, make sure you've not been overcharged.

@GilmoreMe

Putting it bluntly, you need to manage your money better to prevent incurring bank charges if possible going forward, rather than trying to recover them afterwards.

I can't see the amount on HSBC's charges and interest list, but it states that there are fees for processing transactions when exceeding agreed overdraft and also charges for NOT processing transactions. I.e. you remove the unarranged overdraft, but continue to try to make payments when there are insufficient funds in your account, you will still incur a bank charge for this, but it will then be deducted when there are sufficient funds in the account to cover it.

Can you give us some more info? Are you overspending during the month and finding there isn't enough to cover all the bills by the end of the month? Or are you low income and struggling with basics?

Quite low income.
Our household bills are paid from a separate account and are paid and managed. We then have an account each that we use for things like petrol, our own car insurance, I tend to pay for kids clothing/activities/lunch money etc. And it's my personal account that is the issue. When I go overdrawn it's not because I fancy a new outfit or a haircut it's because I need petrol to get to work or we need food in the house.
I am getting better at managing the money I have but something always seems to crop up like a car bill or new glasses needed or the washing machine beaks. It's things like that I have trouble budgeting for but they happen. I am working on the but am stuck in the bank charges causing more overdraft that's eating into next months money cycle.

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Try to get the best free independent/impartial financial advice possible. You can get general advice from mumsnet, but you would benefit from somebody scrutinising your finances etc who knows the best products available.

I can't stress this enough but you need to be on top of your finances I. E. keeping a track of all payments, so you know when you have got sufficient funds. Your bank will charge you fees for not processing the payments, then your supplier accounts will charge you late payment fees if you don't sort it out by the time it's due.

If you're not in debt (except for mortgage) and it is just unexpected costs and you aren't a spendthrift, get an credit card with a 0% purchases introductory offer. Repay this as quickly as possible, during the 0% period so you don't pay interest. But if you don't manage your payments so that your balance is cleared during the offer period, you will then be paying significantly higher APR interest (maybe 17%). You have to be strict and not use the card in any other circumstances other than emergencies/last resort.

Do you know your credit rating? If you have a lower credit rating you are higher risk, so will be less likely to be given the 0% offer.

Can check your score here

[[https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/creditclub ]]

Like PP have said, try to get some of the bank charges back.

Can you
Reduce your grocery bills buying own brand essentials and set a budget, change phone contacts to better tariff, cheaper broadband, cheaper energy providers.

Change cooking habits so you have cheaper options/food goes further. Putting carrots and celery in the mince. Substituting lentils and pulses for meat sometimes.

You say “let” you go overdrawn, it’s your own responsibility to manage your money and not go overdrawn.
Ring them and ask for a gesture of good will refund, you won’t get it all back because realistically if you’ve been charged since December you should of called them by now. But if you’ve not had a refund before they will probably give you some back.
What exactly is causing you to go overdrawn? Is it contactless/pay at pumps? Find what’s causing it and ask the bank what you can do to manage the account better. Maybe get a debit card without contactless, most banks offer some kind of alert service to notify you if the account goes overdrawn, start checking the account regularly. Also in future call them on the day if the account goes into excess and you can’t clear it straight away, they can’t help if you don’t speak to them

How are you going overdrawn if you don't have an overdraft facility? The usual culprits would be contactless and petrol pay at pump transactions. If these are your issue, ask the bank to replace the card with a non contactless one.

You need an account like Starling or Monzo that tracks all transactions live and no overdraft facility so they will be refused if there is no money in the account.

But you also need to check that the money you have is enough for what you need. Are you running out of money because there isn't enough of it, or is it because you are over spending on unnecessary things - if you have bought lots of things for DCs that they have grown out of or no longer play with, is there anything you can sell online or at a car boot sale?

I am getting better at managing the money I have but something always seems to crop up like a car bill or new glasses needed or the washing machine beaks. It's things like that I have trouble budgeting for but they happen

It's good that you've recognised that these things happen, but are you putting the money away for when they do? You need to separate money out for this sort of thing and only spend on discretionary spends for you after stuff like this has been accounted for.

But also is your money fairly shared out or are you falling into the often common trap where the DHs money is for him to spend on himself but the DW ends up spending all her money on the DCs which leaves little or nothing that's just for her?

Maybe separate DC money from your money and put essential DC clothes and days out etc with essential travel and food money and then separate adult spends afterwards - both you and DH should end up with the same amount of money to spend on yourself, even if you earn different amounts.

Put all income into one account and pay all family bills out of this account.

Save some from the joint account for annual and irregular expenses like insurance, Christmas, holidays, broken cars, pets and washing machines.

Put some money in an account for petrol, food, DC expenses.

Split what's left 50/50 between you and DH for own discretionary spending.

As others have said you really need to manage your money better. I am loathe to mention it as I do not recommend for you as you have poor finance planning, but I pay most of expenses on a credit card. I do this because I know I'm anal about clearing it off every month before interest charges even if it means withdrawing from savings.

Why are you (as a married couple) incurring huge bank charges for being overdrawn? Do you ask your dh for money if you are struggling at the end of the month and about to go into overdraft?

Normally I would say a married couple should have joint finances, but with your poor control it is probably safer you don't, could you "borrow" interest/charge free money from dh, then live very frugally until you are back on your feet?

My husband earns more in a week than I do in a month. We both pay a percentage of our wages into an account for household bills. What we each have left over is our own.
I think it should all be family money, he disagrees. So there's not much I can do about that.

So there you have it ..
Another useless fucking bastard who is financially shafting his wife ...

Are the children his ??

Calculate to the last penny how much each month you spend on the children. Make sure that he pays half of that.

Do your bank text you a balance each week and have you set a text alert for when you are getting near a 0 balance? I found both of these really useful.

Only the youngest child is biologically his

A text service telling me a weekly balance sounds good. I'll see if I can set that up.