First one to clear 15k gets a paper hat

too_much_debt

Where is everyone tonight? It's so quiet.

I'm busy Ebaying but need a tape measure and the kids have lost mine so have come to a standstill. Have sold some kids pyjamas on my business account which I just listed about 20 minutes ago so I'm happy about that, mind you, I did reduce the price by £1 as I need to shift some stock and get some money.

I have a sort of dilemma. I hate having 5 different credit card statements coming in over the month and want to condense them slightly. I have 0 on my LloydsTSB (which I've mentioned before). I have a credit limit of £12,000 on that one, I need to do something with my A&L as it is reverting to 17.9 or 18.9% on 15 November.

So, do I transfer the £6,000 from A&L to Lloyds for 6 months at 4.9% with a 3% fee or do I just leave it where it is and try and pay as much off?

I just really hate having so many statements coming in and would prefer just 3 (I have 6.9% for life of balance on Barclaycard and 7.9% for about another 14/16 months with M&S &More).

Is this a good idea or not considering it will add about £180

clearmydebts

Hiya TooMuch,

I am not great at maths and have been trying to get my head around the figures but it sounds like it would be better to transfer the balance (please don't go by my advice though, I'm sure others know better!)



Well, I defo made my AQA target and it's the 1st tomorrow so my balance goes to 0 again. I also made an extra £10 on it today so I will use that on Amazon so between that and dooyoo I will have £20 to spend on dooyoo for Xmas presents! That's made me happy because when I saw my overdraft figure today it made me feel so down, especially as I got paid today and it is right up already

savingholmes

If you can't get 0% you need to transfer to the lowest rate you possibly can. You need to consider 18% versus 7.9% including transfer fee... I would say that unless you are going to repay the blance very quickly that this is a good offer...

savingholmes

Okay another payment day the 1st - so another £200 paid off...

clearmydebts

Well done to you SavingH,

You are doing great!

savingholmes

clearmydebts wrote: »

Well done to you SavingH,

You are doing great!

Thanks I joined this challenge because I thought it was achieveable at least while we both have jobs... my job is iffy so it is an even bigger incentive to clear as much as poss now while things are relatively good! If we are good and lucky in keeping our jobs / getting new local ones quickly and nothing else changes we could be debt free by about April 2010. When I joined my snowball date was more like quite far into 2011... However there are a lot of ifs in there when you think about today's economic climate...:eek:

clearmydebts

You are dead right to pay off as much while you can, especially if your job is a bit iffy. My DFD is May 2014:mad: but I haven't factored in that from next July/Aug my OH will be working full-time again and we will have 2 wages coming in. I am hoping to have the debt paid off by about the same time as you (I am an optimist though!!!).

While I don't like this amount of debt and it isn't fun it has been a great life lesson and I will never get into debt again. It's not worth it because all choice is taken from me and I can never make a purchase without feeling guilty.

savingholmes

clearmydebts wrote: »

You are dead right to pay off as much while you can, especially if your job is a bit iffy. My DFD is May 2014:mad: but I haven't factored in that from next July/Aug my OH will be working full-time again and we will have 2 wages coming in. I am hoping to have the debt paid off by about the same time as you (I am an optimist though!!!).

While I don't like this amount of debt and it isn't fun it has been a great life lesson and I will never get into debt again. It's not worth it because all choice is taken from me and I can never make a purchase without feeling guilty.

Well it will help a lot when you OH is working again. I supported my OH thro college for 3 years - not easy is it. Our debt just went up and up but luckily so did our house value... now the property market is getting its own back. I look it at tho to some degree as sheer luck we have any equity as recently we've only done interest only mortgages!!!! Until the recent price crash I was really proud and pleased that we owned a 25% stake in our house... now that's dropped substantially :eek: which is okay as long as we stay here (but we were/are considering moving -this might kibosh that completely).

The mortgage is affordable just (it went up £70 :eek: a month this year) and will be fine once we've cleared our other debts. Debt repayments are more than 1.5 times our mortgage payments altho most of that is optional not the minimum payments. Effectively that's why I'm stoozing as if you default on a card or other payment you get no credit for having been a model citizen prior to that so I'd rather have some form of savings to cover the minimum payments at least for a while... I'm still over-paying on one card as I need the satisfaction of seeing the £19+K come down too... the stoozing figure by itself is not enough for me...:rolleyes:

At least food and petrol prices have started to come down again... it has all got to help...

doodledo_2

Savingholmes well done on your payment I think you are the leader of the pack at the mo. Everyone is doing really well :T

Can't believe it's November today where the heck has this year gone, isn'ti t a sign of getting old when the years start to pass so quickly lol.

Got to go shopping later and SPEND money which I just don't like doing but it's my brother in laws birthday lol The have to go and give my sister in law some cash for some xmas presents she got for me. Again I don't like paying that either lol. So going to be a big spend day

Will try and make up for it by debt busting as well. So more STP, dooyoo and Ebay for me.

Have a good day :beer:

milliemonster

Morning all, yes I can't believe it's November today, and my birthday tomorrow yikes! that'll put me in my late thirties, starting to feel really old now

well another payment came out to the HSBC card yesterday so thats another £100 off that (excluding interest) to add to my sig, will go and do that now