Can someone explain stoozing to me please?

sitcom123

Hi everyone, I have never heard of stoozing, I am fairly new to the site and have just been glancing round the forums trying to find ways of saving some cash and help with debts. Then I saw Stoozing cash!!! I have read a few of the posts but still dont understand it properly, would someone be kind enough to give me an idiots guide to the basics and the do's and dont's of stoozing then I can see if it would help me.

Thanks everyone x

YorkshireBoy

See the first post in the first sticky at the top of this board...

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=533499

See also www.stoozing.com and read the guides on the home page.

LongTermLurker

The basic aim is to make money out of 'borrowed' money - I lend you £1000 for 12 months and charge you a low rate of interest or a flat fee over the year. You bank that £1000 and at the end of the year you have earned, say, £200 interest, less, say, £100 you've had to pay me for the offer, giving you a profit of £100 (which you will typically pay tax on).

This is not a worked example, it just shows the overall goal

Wyndham

But if you have debts, stoozing is probably not for you. Generally the money you make from stoozing isn't at a rate which is comparable to the debts, and it can muck up your credit rating. You also need to have the discipline to put the money away and not touch it - you can't use it to pay debts.

Just wanted to sound a word of caution about it.... sorry if I've misunderstood your situation.

exel1966

Wyndham wrote: »

But if you have debts, stoozing is probably not for you. Generally the money you make from stoozing isn't at a rate which is comparable to the debts, and it can muck up your credit rating. You also need to have the discipline to put the money away and not touch it - you can't use it to pay debts.

Just wanted to sound a word of caution about it.... sorry if I've misunderstood your situation.

But Stoozing IS making money from debt in one sense.

You have to create the debt with organisations to be able to stooze the money with another organisation. It's good debt, managed debt, a debt that is working for you and making you money.

ALL money made from stoozing is at an interest rate greater than the debt. There'd be no point doing it if It wasn't.

SiuLoong

exel1966 wrote: »

But Stoozing IS making money from debt in one sense.

You have to create the debt with organisations to be able to stooze the money with another organisation. It's good debt, managed debt, a debt that is working for you and making you money.

ALL money made from stoozing is at an interest rate greater than the debt. There'd be no point doing it if It wasn't.

I think the point was if the OP had real debt to deal with, shifting it to 0%, i.e. rate tarting is a more effective way of dealing with it rather than stoozing which is mainly appropriate for people with no other unsecured debts to worry about.

Wyndham

SiuLoong wrote: »

I think the point was if the OP had real debt to deal with, shifting it to 0%, i.e. rate tarting is a more effective way of dealing with it rather than stoozing which is mainly appropriate for people with no other unsecured debts to worry about.

That was what I was trying to say. Thank you.

CarlSmith_2

From Wikipedia:
Stoozing, derived from the verb stooz, is a slang term used to describe the act of borrowing money at an interest rate of 0%, a rate typically offered by credit cardcompanies as an incentive for new customers. The money is then placed in a high interest bank account to make a profit from the interest earned. The borrower (or "stoozer") then pays the money back before the 0% period ends. It is important to note that the borrower does not typically have a real debt to service, but instead uses the money loaned to them to earn interest.

Clariman

CarlSmith wrote: »

From Wikipedia:
Stoozing, derived from the verb stooz, is a slang term used to describe the act of borrowing money at an interest rate of 0%, a rate typically offered by credit cardcompanies as an incentive for new customers. The money is then placed in a high interest bank account to make a profit from the interest earned. The borrower (or "stoozer") then pays the money back before the 0% period ends. It is important to note that the borrower does not typically have a real debt to service, but instead uses the money loaned to them to earn interest.

The origin of the word is that someone on The Motley Fool website referred to "doing a Stooz" i.e. doing as the user Stooz had done with credit cards. This then became Stoozing. So Wikipedia is wrong. "Stooz" was originally a noun and then "stoozing" and "stooz(e)" became verbs afterwards. The word first appeared in early 2004. I was there when it all happened and it is quite cool to have witnessed the birth of a word which now appears in the Chambers dictionary. After I wrote the first ever stoozing FAQ (which appeared on TMF and is still there), Stooz and I then somehow fell into developing our own website which is the Official Stoozing Website which you often see linked to here. It's all been a bit of an adventure really!

Clariman