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It certainly makes you think. Well, shall I spend 10 years paying my card off, or shall I up my payments and get it paid off by the end of next year? Total no-brainer. Useful item.
I've always been unhappy with the A+L credit card repayment - just a minimum of £5 which means it would never be paid off. According to the calculator it would be over 100 years and I'd be dead!
I usually pay on line where the £5 minimum is the default option so I have make sure I fill in the correct payment details. I pay off in full each month.
The other annoyance is that time between getting the bill and making the payment is reducing - a few years ago we had to repay by (about) 4th of next month, but this has now crept forward to 26th of the current month.
MisterFish
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One of the big problems of paying off credit cards with a direct debit is that you can usually only opt to pay the minimum or clear the whole balance. There may be some cards that will allow you to pay a fixed amount of each month, but I don't know who they are. Anyone out there like to tell me who, please?
Another option is to set up a Standing Order to the credit card provider for a fixed amount each month.You can decide how much and it is not too difficult to find out how long this will take to clear the balance, alternatively you can calculate (maybe with a little help from a friend) how much you need to pay each month to clear the debt over a certain period. The beauty of this method is that, each month, you are paying off a bit more capital than the last month simply BECAUSE you are not reducing the amount you pay each month in line with a reducing debt.
I know it works because I have done it for my son. He now owes less than
half he did 18 months ago and will have paid off the debt in full in another 18 months. Had he just done minimum repayments it would have taken about 37 YEARS to clear the debt!
All you need to do is to use the credit card providers bank details to set up a standing order. Just 'phone them and theyshould tell you.
That's what I've done with my credit cards - but they were really reluctant to give me the details to set up a standing order, and very keen to get me to do a direct debit to pay them the minimum amount every month! I stood my ground and got the details and now pay a set amount (more than the minimum!) every month.
It's scary looking at how long the minimum payments will take to clear the debt though! Makes me more determined to get everything paid off ASAP.
most credit cards you can select from a drop down list. when i get the statement i just click who and how much and it gets to them within a few days, much easier than posting or direct debits..... and you can do it anytime of the day. :P
or if they dont have it in the drop down list e.g. the pay and go cards. you just put the details in.
very easy....
i make sure i have the minimum payment coverd,, then any spare cash, ill send on top using the same method using a standing order. where i choose how much.
I have Citi Bank card and despite my efforts they will not accept any additional payment-only minimum or full. Is there any way any member could suggest that I could pay more (If I do pay more they deduct it from the next direct debit)
Advice and help sought. Thanks
I have Citi Bank card and despite my efforts they will not accept any additional payment-only minimum or full. Is there any way any member could suggest that I could pay more (If I do pay more they deduct it from the next direct debit)
Advice and help sought. Thanks
The only way would be to set up a standing order, send extra cheques in, pay by internet banking, or pay extra over the counter using the bank giro slip on the bottom of the statement. If you persist, they will tell you the standing order details - just make sure that if you do spend on the card, then you keep the payments high enough, as you would not want to get a later fee because of this.
Most online banks have a drop down box with details of all the proper bank details for the credit cards. I bank with Barclays, and if you key in that you've got a Citibank card with a certain account format, they already have the details - you just need to key in your 16 digit card number.
You don't have to beg the company for the standing order details. they are usually on your credit card statement for internet bank payments. Look for a section on the back saying something like 'Pay through your Bank' you'll need a sort code which is 6 digits and their account number, then add your credit card number as the reference. I've done it with loads of regular payments, it means you're in control and not the credit card company
One of the big problems of paying off credit cards with a direct debit is that you can usually only opt to pay the minimum or clear the whole balance. There may be some cards that will allow you to pay a fixed amount of each month, but I don't know who they are. Anyone out there like to tell me who, please?
Egg Card certainly does, you have option of Full, Minimum and Fixed Monthly amount. You can also change this up to 5 days before the payment is due to be taken.
Other than that, as others have mentioned, set up a standing order. Usually the details you need are on the back of the statement.
This week Virgin Money refused to accept a request to set a fixed sum for a direct debit, telling me that they were stopping accepting these requests because some customers on fixed DD had accidentally spent more than they thought so incurred charges as the direct debit covered less than the minimum payment.
I pushed, saying I had not been notified in writing of the change. The call taker relented, telling me the request had "just gone through"
Looks like another attempt to make it harder to repay.
How odd, when I got my stuff through from Virgin, and in the phone calls etc they were pushing the idea of a DD for either the full, minimum, or any other amount.
Mind you, I'm paying the minimum & sticking the rest in an interest bearing account like a good MSE-r should!
Perhaps it depends who you speak to; the chap I spoke to was lovely.
There's more to life than books you know,
but not much more
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I ended up needing to confirm something this weekend with Virgin / MBNA and in the course of the conversation found that they had changed my DD back to paying the minimum amount (£5 in my case as being on a a 0% deal at present means no interest or charges are due - another trap in the balance transfer game.)
They are aparrently writing to me to say they have varied the DD.
No amount of discussion would move them, I have now set up a standing order.
They are sticking to the line that this is to protect customers from charges. I still have not had a letter informing of the change of policy.
Last edited by Memetic; 14-09-2008 at 9:19 AM..
Reason: smelling pistakes
Virgin MBNA have decided to stop setting up fixed amount DDs because there are too many customers who forget to "top up" their payments when on fixed amounts.
For example, if you have a fixed amount DD of £50 and your minimum payment is £52 one month and you forget to pay the extra £2 manually, your next statement will show a late fee, and if you were on a promotion, you'd lose the promotion and start incurring interest. This, of course is not the fault of Virgin MBNA but the customer's fault ... but don't we all know how easy it is to blame someone else for our own mistakes?! So, Virgin MBNA have decided that, instead of having customers clogging up their phone lines complaining about something customers could and should have controlled themselves, they're stopping fixed amount dds and are only offering minimum amount dds and full amount dds. Time to take more responsibility for your own spending habits, folks!
Obviously, if you're on a 0% promotion, the full amount dd will be a no-no. Set up a minimum amount dd and get your bank to set up a standing order for however much more you want to pay on top of the dd.
You would be informed by letter of any changes Virgin MBNA make; again, the problem is, not many of us read everything that comes in the post, right? You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Virgin MBNA have decided to stop setting up fixed amount DDs because there are too many customers who forget to "top up" their payments when on fixed amounts.
This is the reason why most lenders won't offer fixed direct debit amounts, but I've never had any problems getting standing order details from the places I use.
Most of the time they're printed on the "ways to pay" section of the statement.
Never leave a direct debit collecting just the minimum payment. I don't tend to use direct debit for credit cards, I would rather make a manual payment which is at least double the minimum.
I remember trying to pay extra on my virgin credit card over the phone and they said they were unable to accept it, i had to go to a bank or pay online. Yet another way to delay paying off quicker. I would always advise setting up dd for minimum payment just so that you don't default and then pay whatever you can afford to clear it quicker. If i was paying just my minimum payments it would take me 17 years to pay but i have worked it out that i can clear it by August 09 bit of a difference!
If your monthly bill states that your estimated interest for next month will be .......... if you make a minimum payment of .................... why does the next months bill always charge double what it has stated.
Very occassionally I will make the minimum payment so I can pay other bills off and then always get stung by this.
Am I missing something?
PS I have spent the last hour looking for the answer to this on the forum.
Ta
If your monthly bill states that your estimated interest for next month will be .......... if you make a minimum payment of .................... why does the next months bill always charge double what it has stated.
Because you've continued to spend on your card after that statement was produced.
You didn't clear your previous statement in full by the due date so you've lost your "(up to) 56 days interest free on purchases" benefit.
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I have three credit cards, all with 7k on them. Virgin are 34.9% APR, Egg 26.9% APR and Mint 18.9% APR. Until this month I have only been paying the minimum and not checking my statements.
Now I have checked and checked the APR's with each lender.
I have worked out that I have £1350 that I can spend a month on debts, cutting back my spending by 75%.
Am I right in thinking I should be paying the minimums on the Egg and Mint Cards and paying everything else towards my Virgin card until it is cleared?
Pls be nice to all MoneySavers. There's no such thing as a stupid question, and even if you disagree courtesy helps. Take care over copyright. Use excerpts and links rather than copying long text. This site asserts copyright on all comments posted on the board.
Pls be nice to all MoneySavers. There's no such thing as a stupid question, and even if you disagree courtesy helps.
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Makes me more determined to get everything paid off ASAP.
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