To cancel the direct debit

[womaninatightspot]

Doing the monthly banking and have realised I am a whopping 14 quid short for the direct debits. I'm thinking that in order of priorities I should pay mortgage also building, home and life insurance. It leaves me with a choice of eon (electricity) or council tax. Does cancelling a direct debit shortly before payment come up on your credit history?

They are requested 3 days in advance, but if you cancel them 24 hours in advance they will leave pending and the bank will not attempt to pay it

Temporary extension of overdraft- if you make the bank aware, they will try to help as they are supposed under good banking code to save you being charged extortionate amounts.

Council tax you need to pay - but again, and with Eon too - if you call to speak to someone you can usually get an agreement sorted temporarily.

But if your DDs are coming out on 1st, realistically the bank is your best chance of sorting this in time not to get whacked by charges.

Twatty has it 100%. Cancel Eon and either just ring up tomorrow and claim hardship or wait for them to send you a bill and set up a direct debit again. Either way you'll be absolutely fine.

Council Tax always before utilities. It's a government bill - they don't take no shit.

I accidentally cancelled my council tax
I had 2 showing on my list so I cancelled the one for my old house
I only knew it had cancelled the new one when I got a letter saying it hadn't been paid
I rang them up and it was easy to set it up again

I'm actually a bit but I found 48 quid in £1, £2 and a couple of £5 and maybe £20 in silver. So used to banking online it never occurred to have a rummage and go to a bank. I needed to have a chat with Eon anyway / check other suppliers as we're out of our fixed deal period so this can be my kick up the bum to do that.
It's been a learning experience so thank you for all the useful advice.

OP did you see my post about amended your eon DD online? Not sure how close to the date you can do it though. Do you have any overpayment credit in your eon account?

If you don't pay electricity they will send you a reminder then all up and give readings so you get an amended bill which adjusts your payment date for you to receive the bill. The first bill we got in new house assumed we'd lived in darkness and cooked for the whole street on the gas job. So we gave readings got s new bill and inntotal a full extra month to pay.

Oops I missed your post. That's good news. It's always worth sticking a few tings on ebay at a good buy it now price too, as money withdrawn
from paypal can be in your bank account almost immediately.

Bank worker here
Cancel your lowest priority dd as it will cost you a fortune in fees otherwise.
Then pay it manually as soon as you can

Cancel the Council Tax. They'll issue loads of warnings and give you plenty of opportunity to pay before going down CCJ route. Most other organisations are based on credit, so will affect your credit ratings if you start missing payments. Do you pay your Council Tax over 10 months? You could change it to over 12 months so you pay less each month.

For the sake of £14 if it cannot be covered in any other way I'd be allowing contents insurance to lapse. It doesn't take long to re-establish the next month and you just have to be careful for a month and make sure nothing gets broken.
That has got to be the stupidest piece of advice here. As long as you can guarantee your house won't get burgled, catch fire, water tank burst, get flooded,and the insurance company won't cancel your insurance and prevent you ever getting insurance again, then sure, cancel your insurance

Cancel the cheque OP!

RTFT people, the matter is resolved.

I mean life insurance is a luxury,
Unless the OP dies and the partner has to give up work to bring up a child

I haven't actually ever logged in to eon before but will give it a go before calling. It is annoying as I thought I was doing really well balancing the books. My income is seasonal so will be comparatively rich at the end of the month and I've paid full year of car insurance and tax. No credit cards or debt apart from mortgage so I put away a lot in the summer to carry through to the start of the season. Feeling a bit like I've fallen at the final hurdle.

Hey ho, live and learn.

We have been in this situation before and we contaced the council and they put the payments back a month so instead of Feb and March being our "free" months, we missed a month through a year and paid in Feb. However, that will depend on when it's due as companies generally need 5 days notice.

Life insurance is a luxury?!

Da fuq?!

It is not. Nothing else to add.

"Live and learn" - ha, I would imagine the best thing you've learnt from this, OP, is that you have a decent slush fund of small change hanging around!!

Get yourself a change jar, put it all in there as you go, and then next time you can just raid that. Plus now you have an extra £34 to play with

I would probably set up a small overdraft with the bank anyway, then you will just pay interest if you go into it and maybe a small monthly charge but only if you use it, just in case this happens again. I have one on my bank account which I never use but it is a safety net just in case.

If your energy supplier is anything like ours they will probably be sitting on £200 of your money and owe you something even after this month's DD.

I do like to keep change in the car . I live rurally so the local version of pay at the pump involves a chap coming to the pump for cash if paying by card you follow him back to the little shop.The local toddler friendly cafe and shop both charge 50p if spending less than a fiver so I like to be prepared. £70 quid in change is excessive though!