www.iva.co.uk

Hi,

I'm not use to this, it makes me anxious. Anyway, here goes, I've been in an IVA since Jan 2010, can I open a straight forward savings account that I can put whatever money aside i have left from paying out into it each month??, I only have the one bank account and live on my own.

Look forward to your reply.

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Please don't be anxious, you'll get lots of help and advice from the forum, and we're all lovely really!

To answer your question, yes, you can open a savings account. It's a good idea to do so as you can then save any allowances you don't spend.

I use Nationwide, and with their online banking I could open new savings accounts easily (though I did loose the money I started them with for around a week....so I started them with £10...and then transferred in any more)

I found it useful to have accounts set up to handle my travel expenses (two accounts used, 1 for Fuel, 1 for maintenace), and others for my budgets (eg contingency, hobbies). Other than the expenses ones, the rest were usually reduced down to zero pretty quickly by unforseen events.

Now my IVA has finished, I still use the multiple savings accounts to help me budget.

I do recall that some banks seem to make it harder to have a savings account too, and want to run credit checks etc which usually fail. Personally neevr had this issue with Nationwide.

PBH

Hi, my head is spinning from this, but getting there, thankyou for your advice, are there any recomended savings accounts I should look out for?, I've been advised not to go to Barclays as they were one of the creditor and Nationwide was. Thankyou

You can try anyone who isn't one of your creditors. I'm now with Nationwide, but I opened a savings account with Yorkshire Building Society without any problems.

I actually bank with the Halifax, would it be best to stay with them re a savings account??

I don't think it makes any difference, but if they are happy for you to have a savings account with them then it's not a problem.

ok, I'll try Halifax and take it from there, thanks for your help, any problems I'll certainly come back. Cheers

Let us know how you get on as it'll always help another poster x

Best of luck Dave.

I find it odd and perverse that they do credit checks for Savings Accounts. I was turned down by the Co-Op for one yet they gave me a bank account!

It shows why the banking system went into meltdown really as they got away from the fundamentals of banking.

Savers deposited money, banks leant it out at high rates of interest, paid you a moderate rate and the rest was profit. Banks need to re-learn this lesson methinks!

I think it's a good idea to have a savings account as it keeps your everyday money away from your contingency.