Credit Card debit doing my head in

philparker70

Hi everyone

This is my first thread so please be gentle. Anyway, I'll cut to the chase and get to the knitty gritty, basically I have £10k in credit card debit due to irresponsible spending during my time as a student and the early part of my career. Anyway now I have settled down I want to become debit free and be able to save for a deposit for a house asap (I know that's not going to happen in the current climate - Grrrr!!!).

I have an eggcard at the moment with approximately £1,000 available credit to do 0% balance transfers, would you suggest using this to start clearing my debit especially as my repayments are crazy at the moment.

Any advice would really help and also ease my sleepless nights......

Thanks

Phil

RAS

Phil

Can you list up your debts as per


Name, amount of debt, APR, maximum amount?

And maybe pay with the snowball on https://www.whatsthecost.com?

peb

RAS as usual talks sense..........

and if you want to go the full hog and let us see if we can help with your budgeting do put up full details of your income and outgoings.

keep posting and spend some time on the site to get the best out of it.

hTH

philparker70

Hi there

Thanks for replying so quickly, it's always nice to get feedback..... Ok, from the top.

Virgin Credit Card - 4320.07 - 34.9%APR
MBNA - 3307.73 - 34.9%APR
Tesco - 1986.45 - 16.9%APR
Eggcard - 497.76 - 0%APR for 12months

At the moment I budget £450 per month on these amounts, which equates to £5,400 per annum but as you know doesn't really make a difference - Grrrr!!!

Thanks

Phil

Horace

Phil - please post your SOA - http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html - if you post this we can see what's coming in and what's going out and see where you can save money.

RAS

Phil

Please read this http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/minimum-repayments-credit-card

If you are just making the payments with those APRs your debt will increase over time.

What is your credit record like?

philparker70

Horace/Ras

Thanks for the continued advice. I've looked at snowballing and it's shows there is an end date (even if it is 36 months away.....). Also, I've looked at inputting my SOA but it actually gives a false indication of the amount of money I have so here it is in black and white

Net income - £1,753

Outgoings - £1,235

Rent - £300
Contact Lenses - £25
Mobile - £35
Car Insurance - £85
HP Car payment - £275
Sofa repayment - £65
Credit Cards - £450

I have a personal budget for food/clothes/fuel etc - £400 so leaving £118 extra as a contingency

With regards to repayments, I ensure that I'm not paying just the minimum payment but also knocking off the balance, which I've noticed is reducing slowly over the months.

Thanks

Phil

CLAPTON

a. make sure you apply the snowball principle to your repayments.. i.e. the minimum amount on each debt except for the one with the highest APR - on that pay as much as possible.

b. transfer whatever you have spare to the egg card from the highest APR cards

c. try applying for anyother 0% card (assuming you haven't make too many applications recently)

d. work out a proper budget/SOA so you can see where your money really goes.. so then you can make a better judgements on whether to cut back particular items

include all the annual or one offs too so you actually save each month for these rather than putting them on CC when the bills arrive..
so include car tax, servicing/MOT, birthday/xmas spending, holidays, weekends away, any optical/dental/medical costs
and of course breakdown that 400 per month into where it goes .. there's a big difference between fuel (maybe essential to get to work) and clothes (can be cut back or even have a 6 month no spend period), and include socialising, lunch expenses etc.
£118 seems a lot of contingency but maybe not once you do a full SOA.

try keeping a spending diary ..write down everything you spend for a month.. it can give some surprising results.

philparker70

Thanks Clapton I'll sit down on the weekend and do a detailed SOA. Thanks phil