Am I missing anything...?

According to your first post you spend all your money paying off the credit card bill each month.

So, if you spend the same amount and pay for these bills as they arise you are still spending the same amount each month so where does the extra come from to pay the credit card bill.

E'g. using your figures above monthly spend on credit card £500 and nothing left over.

Monthly spend paying direct will still be £500 so still nothing left over.

You will only have money to pay off the new credit card bill if you reduce the monthly spending by that amount.

The light bulb moment comes when you realise you are in debt. Yes you are in debt if you are paying off last month's spending with this month's pay. The debt may not be large but it is still debt. Transferring to a 0% BT card will help you to pay down this debt but you need to realise how you got there in the first place and how to prevent it happening in the future - what is stopping you from transferring it out into easily manageable monthly payments and starting again with the old card ?

Set up a budgeting spreadsheet, I have one with many columns for 5 credit cards, 1 spending account, 1 budget account and 2 savings accounts - the last 4 columns in reality being one interest paying current account. At the bottom of the current column is the box that shows how much I have to spend for the remainder of the month taking into account what is actually in the account, what bills have to come out and what is owed on the cards. Quite simple to do.

stubbyd wrote: »

OK - in the outgoings I initially mentioned is already included regular savings. I should have said that.

For arguments sake let's say my CC bill is £500 monthly and I have access to another £500. In my proposed scenario I now have £975pm free (£500 CC pay off plus £500 spare minus £25 (estimated) for the monthly CC pay off) and the various required budgets (fuel, food, etc) taken into account from the "free" money.

The key difference is I pay my bills as they occur rather than a month later and the important aspect here is the remaining free (the £500 in the original scenario) is now much more closely monitored & budgeted rather than just being seen as frivolous spend money. And this is the key aspect to me... "the free money is monitored and budgeted". Looking back I can see that I left this key aspect out - so my apologies

Bottom line I guess is that it is all about regaining control of our finances.

Why borrow more money? just use your savings.

Currently any savings you have are through borrowing.

Shakin_Steve wrote: »

I must admit, I am absolutely awful at that. If I have, say, £4000 in the bank and a CC debt of £2000 on a low APR deal, I pay it off monthly and hang on to the money in the bank 'in case I need it'. Stupid, I know.

Not to big a deal if it is zero or very low as you can get savings at least at that level to break even.

It's OK if your cash flow says you will need that money again soon and you could not get the borrowing at the same rate again but if you are on top of things a 0% purchase card should not be too big an issue to get.