To think some banking practices make it so hard to track your spending?

[coffeerevelsrule]

Like many people I am panicking about money atm and trying to keep a close eye via the app of what goes in and out of my account.

I got paid 2 days ago - about £2800. My mortgage is £600 and my fuel £135 (fixed) and they've already come out along with a few other DDs but not council tax or car loan, which are the other biggies. I'm already down to £1600 despite not really having done anything since being paid.

I felt a bit sick on seeing the total and then saw that the online shop I did on Friday came out yesterday. But I am sure it had shown as having come out (not pending - actually gone) at the weekend. At the end of every month (so weekend just gone for me) I transfer whatever is left (if any...) to savings, or this month to the credit card I used when away on holiday. However, this Asda payment seemingly moving from the end to the start of the month has meant I moved about £80 more than I could really afford to and has now set me back for the rest of the month.

I'm so sick of thinking about fucking money all the time...Why do banks do this?

I have found Monzo really useful, it shows exactly what's gone out and you can assign to different pots.

Revolutionary in my opinion.

I think Starling runs the same system.

You need a bit more buffer in your current account for pending payments. (You can afford that because you are talking about moving money to savings). I would also suggest moving to a more modern bank. Starling is very up to date on the app for spending.

Is Santander not a modern bank then?! My bank shows two balances - actual and pending, and both were the same when I made the transfer. The Asda payment showed as cleared before I did it but now it's showing as having cleared yesterday.

I'll definitely have a look at some other banks.

I was really pleased with Nationwide the other day. This month has been a high spending one that's left us with a lower balance than usual.

Nationwide sent a text saying xx amount was due to come out and would send us into overdraft. I immediately transferred over xx to cover it.

I think that's great customer service (I know it's an automated system but it's very useful).

I'm with Halifax and your balance shows as whatever your current balance is minus anything pending. They also text if you've got too little funds for any DDs which has saved me a couple of times as we have a separate savings buffer I've been able to transfer. Pretty surprised Santander don't have something like that as it seems pretty standard to me.

@coffeerevelsrule not sure about Santander. I'm with both HSBC and Starling and the later has much better budgeting capabilities in the app. I also find HSBC has delays with payment like you mention. Though I agree with you that logically this should be a problem with the merchant not the bank. As in the didn't 'claim' the immediately but wait a few days before doing it.

Yep, Monzo is great. All our bills come out of a separate pot so money automatically goes in there to cover them when we get paid and I don't have to look or check that there's enough - it just comes in and out of the pot automatically, and the rest of the money is in main account or other pots for different things, so we can always see exactly how much we have.

I'm no Santander devotee, but I feel honour-bound to point out that they do have alerts such as PP above have mentioned that let you know if the account goes below £200 / you are have DD pending that will send you overdrawn. They weren't relevant to the situation I've posted about. I'm not going to go overdrawn, it's just that I've got less money than I thought I did to last the rest of the month and the reason (partly, at least) is that a payment I thought had cleared before I got paid hadn't. That's annoyed me!

You need a pocket book or other written record if you want to keep track of things in real time - you can NEVER rely on any banking system to be correct all the time (I work in finance and am used to things looking different in the system than I expected them to be).

If I was concerned about the £80 gone to the credit card in error I would make an £80 purchase - perhaps next food shop - from the credit card to redress the balances.

But overall, there is no system in the world that does not require you to monitor it regularly, just accept that and develop the right system for you.

I have a real old school system, I use a spreadsheet. I have a list of everything I'm expecting in (and my bank balance) followed by a list of everything I'm expecting to go out. I can then make sure I have enough to last me the month as the sum total at the bottom will be positive. It's easy to keep a tally as you can see where you left off last time from the bank balance recorded on the spreadsheet, then everything underneath that line needs to be deducted from the list of expenses.
I use nationwide and have a number of e-savings accounts too. I have standing orders to one for car expenses, and another for Xmas and birthdays for example, so I don't tend to have months with big expenses as I've specifically saved for those occasions I know are coming. Then use my isa for general savings.

It isn’t your bank’s fault, it’s yours. You need to learn to budget properly, not spend everything that you earn, and take some responsibility.

Hmm, I think this is probably not an issue connected to a bank per se. Payments are not processed directly by banks but by payments systems providers and it will depend how it’s being processed as to how long it takes.

The Bank of England has an explainer which shows all the different parties involved in settling a card transaction. A delay is more likely to come from the acquirer than the bank in these transactions imo.

Direct debits are done via BACS which are processed on a 3 day cycle.

Faster payments are generally real-time (processed within a few hours) but they don’t process payments on weekends, so a payment on Friday evening wouldn’t process until Monday.

I have two accounts, one my money goes into and set DD come out of and then 1) Income and set direct debits for bills and savings.
2) Monthly spending
That way the DD are always covered and any spare is moved into the spending account for food, petrol and other expenses. If Ive anything left in the spending account I either move it into savings or roll over to give a bigger bumper for the next month.

The problem was you moved the savings out too quickly, very rarely have any payments of mine actually come out on the weekend - I dont know why as you'd imagine its all automated.

Separate your spending money from your bills money and leave the right amount in your bills account and forget about it until the end of the month.

Keeping track when you spend from your bills account is a nightmare unless you have loads of spare money so I don't know why you'd do that.

It’s relatively simple.

Take £1,000 from your emergency fund, transfer it to your current account, and then you never need to worry about which dates your payments go in and out.

I have santander for personal and starling for business.

I like both but starling is a wizz at being able to allocate online payments to various functions so you can keep track-

The other thing starling is good for in business is that you can see the day before when you have a credit going in the next day.

Payments generally only debit on working days, so if debit card payments are showing on a weekend I’d be very surprised.

We pay a set amount to cover all bills into our bills account including credit card full repayments. The credit card is used for fuel/food. If anything more than the budgeted amount is required it’s either funded from personal spends or joint savings depending on what it is.

Any personal spending is done from our sole accounts and is a set amount each month.

Have a look at YNAB. It’ll basically free you from the balance of your current account. It’s a learning curve but it’s great if you want clarity over your spending.

Ditto YNAB. Just two years ago we were watching the balance of our current account like hawks worrying if we'd last till payday. Now I can't even tell you my bank balance to the nearest £1000 because it's not relevant - it's made up of new car savings, holiday fund, maybe mortgage money if we've just been paid, oil money (we have to pay several months heating on one go...), annual insurance, Christmas savings, shopping money for month - so I might have several grand in the bank, but I will be able to afford oil and Christmas. I can't afford a spa day or takeaway.
YNAB makes budgeting so clear.

Seriously? There's nothing wrong with banks. It's your budgeting and worse still your view of it, that is the problem here.

YANBU

Both Monzo and Starling report your balance that way. Both are new banks - I imagine that when you’re designing personal from scratch to meet needs of customers, the way older banks do it seems like madness.

and for those saying op needs a budget, surely it’s not one or the other. I budget and I use a bank that reports my balance to include pending transactions. This kind of reporting facilitates my budgeting habits - not sure why PPs would want budgeting to be hard for people?

@coffeerevelsrule I’m a huge fan of Monzo. It’s transformed my money management and is so functional. I still have an HSBC account and everything to do with it is just so awful and archaic and rubbish.

I disagree with PP about HSBC. I have their banking app and find it really easy to track expenditure. They recently added a ‘Balance after bills’ view at the top of your account view which shows what you have left at the end of the month or pay period after all DDs, standing orders and pending payments are accounted for. It doesn’t allow you to apportion money to budgets like some of the other providers mentioned, but it’s enough for me.

It sounds like just a timing thing, yes? Because your payday fell at the weekend and so did your supermarket shop. As someone else suggested, can't you just use your credit card for a different £80 shop and you'll be in exactly the same position as you would have been?

I agree that a spreadsheet or app to keep track of your spending would be worthwhile, OP.

There's always going to be something at the wrong side of a cut off, especially if you're mixing monthly and weekly budgeting as they'll never exactly align.

Plus a holiday needs to be accounted for over a longer period, so you either need to have paid for it with money saved already, or accept that you can't save as much this month because you've spent more than usual due to going on holiday.

But you can't describe having paid your mortgage, holiday spending and other bills as 'not really done anything since being paid' and it looks like you are reasonably comfortable financially if your income is £2800 and your mortgage is £600.

It doesn't sound like you need to be 'panicking' and if £1600 minus council tax and a car loan isn't enough for the rest of the month's groceries and general spending perhaps you need to look at what you're spending money on as you might be leaking money somewhere?

You need to make a list of incomings and outgoings so you can see how much you should have left to put in savings every month and transfer that amount, not what it looks like you have left in your bank account. If you can't save that amount of money, that's because your budget is inaccurate and you're overspending somewhere.

I use Microsoft money for all my budgeting. It doesn't really matter if payments have cleared or not, I enter as soon as I've spent and then I know exactly what I should have left at the end of the month.