sort out my finances

Well it has been four months and, although there have been a few “expensive blips” I was able to pay what my colonial friends would charmingly refer to as “tuition fees”, out of my current account without going over my overdraft limit.

On the downside I don’t own a motorbike, a pony, or a foreign holiday this year – but it’s all a step in the right direction.

Not going to close this one quite yet – as an acknowledgement that there is still a way to go.

can i not tranfer money into my ISA online!?

1. Saved on the house insurance by £200 a year
2. Reduced Virgin Media bill from £100 to £50 per month
3. Going to move all of my direct debits to the 1st of the month so I feel more in control once I get paid.
4. Going to contact credit cards to see if any offers and use them.

Thats all for now!!

I have stopped drinking real coffee at work and have been quaffing the instant stuff.

This has saved me around £25 per week x 4 weeks is £100

I have also been working to a budget for entertainment for the whole month of £50 per week (coffee would have counted as ‘entertainment’ for the purposes of this exercise).

I suspect I might have gone slightly over budget on this – but I was blowing almost a grand here and there, so reducing that to around £250 means a total saving for the month of £750

I have also cut out the weekly and monthly items that I no longer need. My backup ISP has gone, (£15 per month) and my internet radio station (£5 pcm)

That means I should have saved almost £800 so far!

I need to manage my money before I get to 50. I’m 47 and a quarter now so think it should be doable but I said this when I was in my 20s and 30s, I’m learning all the time but need to put it all into practice.

transfer complete!

change confirmed by Japanese peeps! At last, the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place!

on online banking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After EIGHT MONTHS of having no idea what was going on with my account, the boffins at Barclays have finally condescended to send me a new card AND a card id scanner thing that actually works!

Good grief!

Now I have only to persist in asking them why there have been no written statements to my home address during that period, and get the Japanese people to change my address details so that I can transfer money before the pound recovers.

is resolved, and I can now use my account, but I still can’t use on-line banking and, naturally, the branch are nowhere to be found!

Have finally got through to my branch manager, who was wonderfully helpful. It turns out:

• barclays branches aren’t allowed to make international phone calls, so they’ve been getting all the faxes from customer services HQ who are somehow unaware of this, but were unable to act on them.

• the new card that went missing in the post was completely unnecessary, and I should have been able to use my current card anyway so the manager was as perplexed as I was as to why a new card had been sent out in the first place.

• the reason there was a caution on my account was that there had been three failed pin attempts on the (unnecessary) card which went missing in the post, and NOT as I had been told, simply because the card had gone missing en route.

We now very much hope things are sorted. Good grief, is all I could find to say in the face of such institutional incompetence.