Front Page · Money Desk
Father Declares Christmas Fund "Sorted," App Agrees, Balance Does Not
His banking app rates the household's Christmas Club "On Track." Nobody has told it about August.
His phone sat face-down on the table through most of dinner. He picked it up once, under the tablecloth, just to check. "We're basically there," he told the table. "Could even be ahead."
We're basically there. Could even be ahead.
He opened the account in January, forty pounds a month, round and sensible. He has made some of the payments since. Not most of them. The app does not call this behind. It calls it "On Track."
The badge has not moved since February. It survived a couple of missed payments, and one bounced direct debit. A building society spokesman said the badge measures intention, not progress. Intention, he added, is currently strong.
The spokesman added that the badge's colour scheme does not change for missed payments, only for fraud. He described fraud, by comparison, as "extremely rare and much easier to explain."
The real gap opened in August, at a leaving do. He paid for a round he could not afford, from the Christmas pot, by phone, at the bar. The app logged the transfer under "Leisure & Hospitality." It did not ask why Christmas was funding a round of shots.
Topping it back up is not simple. The building society requires five working days' notice on any lump sum over a certain size. Christmas is a month away. He has fewer working days left than the notice requires.
He has started moving money between accounts to beat the window. A little at a time, so nothing looks planned. His card was declined once, at the machine, with his daughter parked in the trolley beside him. He felt the sweat reach his collar before the second attempt went through. He blamed the machine.
At dinner he refreshed the badge twice more, for the table's benefit, and called it "healthy." It was not healthy. It was unchanged.
The building society sent a letter confirming receipt of his notice, dated and stamped, thanking him for his patience. It used the word "patience" more than once. He has shown none.
He is not the only one at the table with a phone face-down. His wife keeps a separate pot, named "Emergency Fund (Not For Dave)." Its badge also reads "On Track." Neither of them has checked the other's.
He made the transfer on the last working day before the cut-off, the full amount, at once. The badge did not change. It had never once gone down.
This newspaper's own Christmas fund, started the same January, is nineteen payments behind. Its badge also reads "On Track." We have not yet told advertising.