Operating a 2nd bank account for bills

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JP1234

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We are thinking of opening a 2nd account purely for the purpose of paying the bills and wonder if anyone here has done the same thing and if so do you have any recommendations/advice.

We would be feeding around 2k into the account each month, with around 1650 going out on DD and SO, the rest used to build up to pay for the non-monthly stuff (car tax/repairs & servicing etc)

We wouldn't want cheque book/laser card facilities, the idea being we don't withdraw anything from this account apart from the above.

The only account I can find that seems to fit the bill is the NIB Cash Master - has anyone used this?
 
I opened up a second account with PTSB called a "budget account." It is treated like a current account, i.e. you can set up your DD on this account and for all bill payments.

I don't have any atm card etc. attached to this account. It is used mainly for DD purposes for household bills.


Hope this helps.
 
Thanks for that, I couldnt find anything on the PTSB site - just their current account which we don't want, I might give them a ring as we don't even particularly want to have an atm card.
 
Would there be additional charges for a second bank account?

When I was shopping for free banking, a common condition seemed to be that your paycheck was going into this account.
 
I am not sure about the charges, there is no mention of them on the nib site
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though some of the others I looked at did insist on maintaining a mimimum balance - our plan was to transfer 500euro each week from our BOI where our salaries go into to the new account.
 
We went for an NIB Freebank account - use it for paying bills in the same way as you are planning to. No cards, no charges, its suiting us perfectly at the moment anyway. [broken link removed]

I have no connection with NIB other than being a satisfied customer.
 
Do not the utility companies in Ireland operate Budget Accounts as they do over here in England?
My telephone; gas;electricity; council tax; house insurance etc are all paid monthly, with, in some cases, a discount for so doing.
 
Yes they do. All of our bills are monthly DD or SO coming out of our day to day current account and as I am paid monthly but my partner weekly we want to separate the regular bills from day to day living cash flow by paying in a fixed amount to an account each week to cover the mandates going out on a monthly basis, rather than having to constantly check we haven't overspent one week when a big bill is due:eek: This way, hopefully, knowing our bills are covered separately we will have a better idea of where we stand in terms of how much we can spend or save each week/month
 
JP1234 said:
We are thinking of opening a 2nd account purely for the purpose of paying the bills and wonder if anyone here has done the same thing and if so do you have any recommendations/advice.
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I did exactly that with my GF some years ago, and it worked very well...
She had her own money/account (to buy me presents!), i had my money/account (to buy her presents!), and we had our money/account for all house related stuff....(rent, bills, food, etc...).

Also, to be fair, we were not putting 50/50 into the account, but an amount based on our incomes. So, say we needed to put €2000 pm, and say she was earning more than me, then she would have put say 60% (€1200) and i would have put the remaining 40% (€800) into the account.

We never ever had any argument as to who was paying more, who was paying what, who was using the phone most, who was using ESB, etc..
Worked perfect.... so well, that we got married:)
 
We have a joint account where we both transfer a set amount each month. We get earn almost the same so its 50/50 in our house. This pays for the mortgage, bills & food.

We use our own visa cards to pay for groceries, stuff for the house etc . Then once a month we transfer from our current account to our personal accounts what is due, using telephone banking.

Any balance builds up and we usually blow it on a weekend away:D

We have a current account with Ulster bank. We find that a cheque book comes in handy for paying tradesmen etc..but we don't use it very much.
 
Not sure if I'm misunderstanding. The system over here is that an estimate, based on past usage, of how much the utility will cost you over the next 12 months is agreed and that cost is divided by 12 to give a cost per month. There are no big bills.
 
The bills here are cheaper than in England ( although some people might disagree) For a start there is no Council tax. Before I left London it was getting silly, no matter what you earned it was taken up with paying bills, and every year they went up. You could never seem to get ahead. The phone and the electric bill are paid every two months here as against three months in UK and maybe that is a good thing. It means that in that two month time slot you know where you are and can guard against running too high a bill. Before I left London I was paying nearly £1000 a year Council tax. But to get back to the banking question, most of the bills can be paid using online banking which is easy to keep track of.
 
Note also: As this will become your main working account it's important you don't build up any negative balances unless you have an agreed over draft. When you are looking for house loans etc they will ask you for 3 months bank statements on your main working account.
 
My monthly bills are as follows (all in sterling):

House Insurance 45.27
Life insurance 23.32
Boiler maintenance 11.79
Denplan (for two) 64.19
Council tax 106.00
Gas 52.50
Electricity 31.50 (currently in credit by £350)

As I said in my earlier post, these cover my utility bills for the year,with the exception of water which costs about £500 per year which I pay in two instalments.

The system works very well for me.
 
Hi, we did the exact same when we got married & it works very well.
We got a joint account in BOI & just requested that we didnt get ATM card etc. We never physically take cash out of this account.
Both t/f a set amount into the account on a monthly basis & all DDs come out of it.
For Groceries etc I pay by CC & then at the end of the month t/f back out what I am owed - seems a bit silly t/f in & then out but it helps keep track of things better for me
We got an overdraft of €1k just in case - will cover 1 months bills if for some reason money doesnt get t/f in.
Money that builds up.....usually goes on lump sum bills like house insurance, tv licence or new stuff for house.
Fees on a/c only work out about €10 a quarter so really not pushed moveing to no fee account.
 
Winnie said:
Fees on a/c only work out about €10 a quarter so really not pushed moveing to no fee account.
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I was thinking about that, the cost of maintaining the account will be much the same as yours. Given the hassle of opening a new account with a new bank then having to ensure the transfers go through in time etc I think we are just going to do as you did and stick with BoI for the second account

Thanks for the replies
 
Just to add a final point, I'm with UB and I have a 'current' a/c and a 2nd 'bills' a/c for paying bills (as you suggest). It's just another current a/c as far as I can tell. From end of Feb 2006 they are scrapping fees for personal accounts so it won't cost me anything for this. Plus, online banking makes everything simple! Salary comes into my 'current' a/c once a month, I transfer out a lump sum for estimated bills (plus a little more for a 'holiday' month in the future) into my 'bills' a/c and I'm left with the freedom of knowing I can spend whatever's in my current a/c without worrying about an unforseen bill arriving in the door.
 
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