Struggling with Bank Charges

Posted on February 2, 2019

Keep getting stung by bank charges?

Keeping track of your household spending can be tricky, and avoiding bank charges can be difficult if you are juggling weekly pay and monthly bills! Creating a budget can sound a little daunting, but it doesn’t have to be! We’ve got 5 tips to help:

1) Get started: You just need to know how much money you’ve got coming in, and what you need to spend it on. Sites like money advice have budgeting planners to help. www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/tools/budget-planner.

2) Prioritise: Make sure you put money aside for the important stuff first. Your rent or mortgage of course, but then allow for food, utilities, council tax, and essential travel. It’s really important to make sure the essentials are covered before you even think of allocating money for other spending.

3) Review: Figuring out how much you spend in any area is a learning curve, so don’t worry if you don’t get your budget right the first, second, or even the third month – take notes of where you went wrong, and learn from them the next month. Keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook feed, it’s always full of useful tips. From how to cut down on your supermarket shop, to great ideas on how to redecorate on a budget. 

4) Pay off & save money each month: Clear any loan or credit card repayments before you look at taking out any more credit. The more credit you have, the harder it might be to make the repayments. Our loan calculators can show you how much your repayments would be and how much the interest is, so you can easily see if using a credit card or taking out a personal loan with us will save you money every month. 

5) Save: If you struggle to save because you find it too easy to spend money as soon as it’s in your pocket, it might be a good idea to come up with something worth saving for. Whether it’s a new pair of shoes, or a family holiday – having a target can make it easier to kick the spending habit! Call us on 03336 000690 to set up an additional savings account, you can save as little as you want at a frequency that suits you. Our Christmas savings account is very popular and helps spread the cost of Christmas breaking the cycle of debt. 

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The Engage Account card at Eastern Savings & Loans can help you keep track of your spending with its free mobile app, it also has secure wallets that allow you to put money aside for rent/mortgage, utilities and council tax out of weekly pay. Best of all it has no charge for failed payments and you can earn Cashback from selected retailers, putting you in control and saving you money. Find out more about the Engage Account.