credit card or overdraft........

ragstoricheswannabe

me and my oh have a joint account in to which everything goes in and all bills go out to save on arguments. the only problem is that these days (since my mat leave started and may wage reduced by a stupid amount) we seem to be living in the overdraft. as our ft mortgage runs out next nov i have challenged us to get some of our debt down, worked out its currently about £18k.:eek: would it be best to put all our efforts into paying off the credit cards and loan or to get out of our overdraft?

Naomim

It depends on the interest rates. My overdraft was at 21.9% and credit card was 16.9% so it made sense to clear the overdraft first. Also you can move credit cards around to get good deals but you can't with an overdraft.

Naomi x

ragstoricheswannabe

on a halifax cc at the mo at 16.9% but have managed to get an egg card at 0% but for only some of the cc debt. my loan is at 7% i think, not sure how much my overdraft charges.... thats bad isnt it.

ragstoricheswannabe

just checked and my overdraft is 15.9% on the first £1k but it then goes up to 19.5% for more than £1k, thats EAR, is that the same as APR?

Naomim

Sorry couldn't reply earlier as I had to get back to work :rolleyes:

I don't know the difference between EAR and APR so I can't help but I'm sure some of the great bods on here will.

I know maternity pay is rubbish, it's what helped us sink deep into the overdraft and credit cards when I was off. It might be beneficial for you to post an SOA (statement of affairs) here so we can see if there are places we can help you cut down to 1) stop going into overdraft and 2) get more money to throw at the credit cards.

http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Once you've completed it, at the bottom there's a button that says format for MSE and then you can cut and paste onto here. Maybe start a new thread for it to get some more attention

HTH

Naomi x

savingholmes

Good luck and welcome!

I agree you need to post your statement of affairs but you may also benefit from going to the snowball calculator at http://www.whatsthecost.com/login.aspx This will tell you which cards to pay off first providing you collect all your apr info first. You need to know whether you can overpay on your loan and whether if you do it will reduce your interest charge or not. Some loans are front loaded so you pay the interest off first...!

HTH

themagics

we just been thru court for stat demand for an old overdraft so i would opt for that one good luck

ragstoricheswannabe

thanx everyone 4 replying, think i am going to try and get out of my overdraft first as its costing me around 12 -13 quid a month and am in an account that pays good interest if ur not overdrawn.... watch out for my soa, just grabbing my info together to complete when baby goes to sleep. x