DAYLIGHT ROBBERY!!

Daylight Robbery??

I watched a TV programme last night, which I can honestly say I have never watched before – The Money Programme – how glad am I!! It dealt with Bank Charges, call them penalty charges or service charges or whatever name the banks are currently giving them – I call them ‘Daylight robbery’. The saddest thing of all is that the people most affected by these charges are the people who can least afford them. Ok I can hear some of you out there saying, “well you shouldn’t spend what you don’t have”, but sometimes it’s just the everyday bills, which are just too much to cope with.

I will give myself as an example – I am on quite a low income as I work part-time in a school, which only employs me during Term times – and yes I did try to get a full time job – rejection is not anything that anyone can easily cope with! Over the years my expenditure has regularly overtaken my income – not always due to extravagance. I have most of my bills paid through my bank – direct debits mainly. Once in a while I miscalculate and forget that I might have spent an extra £20 or more over my budget – when this happens and it does happen at least once every other month it starts a snowball rolling.


I have two particular direct debits totalling £9.00 – during this last summer my bank decided to bounce these three times each – charging me a total of 6 x £38, putting me even further into the red and then penalising me a further £40 plus interest - all these charges came to just under £300 – all for something that should have cost me £9.00. I tried phoning to say that I thought these charges were excessive in relation to amount I had to pay and was fobbed off with ‘you signed a contract’.

That is all I am going to say on this subject except that there are many websites available to help you with the legalities of claiming your money back – Moneysaving expert.com is one of them. Good luck!

On other personal news, I have been really busy with work at school, plus loads of socialising. One of my best friends and colleague is leaving work and we had a party for her yesterday – I got a bit emotional – I am really going to miss her.

Hopefully I will get myself sorted to post something a bit more interesting and varied and also to write a bit more frequently – I have got out of the habit.

Until tomorrow – or the day after.

Jo xx