overdraft fees

[BrilloPad]

Surely those who pay huge percentages in overdraft fees should be grateful to the banks for pointing out how stupid they are?

[Spacecadet]

care to elaborate?

[SimonMac]

Whats an overdraft?

[BrilloPad]

care to elaborate?

Spending more than you earn is a sure way to misery. One should live within ones means. The banks are doing people a service by pointing the way to happiness in a format that the masases can understand.

Plus I enjoyed the quote from the book I read last - "Sh*t my dad says". I intend to model myself on that guy now.

[BrilloPad]

Whats an overdraft?

Apparently it is something that affects stupid people. I doubt you will find any of those on here.

[Platypus]

Apparently it is something that affects poor people. I doubt you will find any of those on here.

Humm.

[SimonMac]

Apparently it is something that affects stupid people. I doubt you will find any of those on here.

Humm.

I would say an overdraft is a sign of bad financial planning (stupid) rather than lack of money (poor).

I got myself into a lot of debt, including a heafty overdraft even though I was earning a good permie salary, and given the fact that at the moment no bank will give an overdraft to anybody with no money

[Platypus]

I would say an overdraft is a sign of bad financial planning (stupid) rather than lack of money (poor).

I think you'll find a lot of people get into serious financial trouble after a dramatic change in circumstances such as divorce, bereavement or serious injury preventing them from working.

[d000hg]

Good financial planning means you typically have little in a current account, therefore it's easy to stuff up.

Example 1 - I had written a cheque A for £1000 from account A and I paid in a cheque B for £2k to account B before cheque A was cashed. The money showed up on Account A immediately but I couldn't move it until it cleared, 3 days later - in the meantime cheque B was cashed and I ended up overdrawn since I don't keep that much floating in the current account.

Example 2 - I knew my credit card was near the limit before we went on holiday and wanted to make sure we had credit available abroad. So I made an additional payment of a few £k. Only to find they didn't automatically take this off the balance, but proceeded to try and take the full amount from my account which was now empty after paying out several £k... hence my credit card company tried to charge me for failing to pay them, and my bank tried to charge me for a failed payment.

The more carefully you plan things, the easier you can stuff it up... keeping all your cash in one account would be far easier

[AtW]

Good financial planning means you typically have little in a current account, therefore it's easy to stuff up.

No, that's not good financial planning - that's being very very stupid.