I totally don't get the One Account system

[twinklingfairy]

Feeling very dim and out of control of my finances. Has got to the point that I transfer money out of it into an account for me and an account for DH (for day to day money, for food, petrol etc). Then leave the rest in there for bills. Then remove our one account cards from us.
The hope is that there will actually be money left over in there to try to clear some mortgage, but not sure if I am making any head way at all. Really don't think I am
Though, of course money is not as good as norm. Chritsmas pay had to last 6 weeks and January pay inc a holiday for DH (I am SAHM)
Maybe next month it will all start to work out, but I am just so fed up feeling like we are getting no-where with it all.
I thought the one account was supposed to be easy

Sorry just wanted to moan.
And to know if anyone else out there feels as confused by the one account style.
Don't want to close the account and try to find a new one, it was so stressful cancelling all the direct debits.
Feel bit trapped in a bad mortgage, for us.

I have a One Account mortgage but have kept my old current account and dp's as well. I set myself a mortgage payment and keep some extra money and settle some larger expenditure in there. Am not really reducing mortgage at moment though would like to be but long term plan to move and reduce mortgage because of good equity.

I do think this is very complicated particularly if you're short of money.

There are calculators there for payments to repay by a date, say if you aim to pay in 20 years they will tell you how much you need to pay to do so. You can also see if you're paying in more than the interest every month. My payments are about what those on my previous mortgage needed to be.

Try finding out what your mortgage payments need to be, and then what you can spend on everything else, and compare the can spend on everything else with what you do spend. Then you can decide whether you have to pay off less of the mortgage or cut back on other spending.

Good luck!

if you are not actively 'overpaying' each month it is not really worth having a One Account, their interest rate is always more than 1% higher than current variable rate. Ours was brilliant when we regularly overpaid and each year the satisfaction of seeing that overpayment knocking years off the mortgage was fab .... but once we stopped overpaying the standard variable rate is high and you are better to remortgage back to a more traditional mortgage and save each month from a better rate ifywim

Why would you have a One Account, and then have other accounts as well? The whole point is just to have a single account and not keep transferring money back and forth. The money you have in your other accounts are not working towards reducing your mortgage interest.

We have the Barclays equivalent, and I think it is so easy to use. TBH, you can sit back and do absolutely nothing. We do have some pots within the account where we can keep specific savings, but it is not really necessary to use these - you can do it all with a single current account and single mortgage account.

The OneAccount is really only worth it if you're overpaying, as K20 said. There's also some debate about whether it's worth it except in certain situations, but I don't know enough to talk about that. It seems like you might be better eithre setting a 'repayment' to leave in the account or moving to a mortgage which won't penalise you for overpaying, but which has a set repayment every month.

I only ever used our One Account to make a single monthly payment into for the mortgage + additional small amounts during the month (we were both paid weekly) to make the over payment. DH and I always kept separate accounts. It's a very dangerous game to have mortgage and current account all in one as overspent is just taken from the mortgage account - you need very tight control of your finances, or need to be nowhere near the top of your earnings/outgoings balance to use these type of accounts. In fact if you go into arrears on the mortgage you effective lock your current account immediately as well. ALWAYS keep other current accounts running ....

Thank you everyone.
I think I am doing the right thing taking money out for day to day and leaving the one account well alone to do it's thing.
I think we have made the mistake of spending out of the mortgage which means we have not made any real head way this year (well, last year, I suppose)
So I am hoping that seperating it all out and hiding the card will help to help it along.
It' so easy to see the extra money there and think woohoo, I can get that....
I hope we will move some time in the next year, so, although I think the best thing for us would be to change the mortgage to one that we can make over payements to, it might not make sense to do it until we are moving. At which point I can admit defeat with the one account style and get something simpler.
In the mean time, thank you again for making me feel less alone in the way I am dealing with it.