New stoozer weighing up whether to go for it

Pythagorous

Hi guys,

I've always been aware of stoozing, but never gave it a go. Just trying to decide now if its worth putting the effort into.

Can you give me an idea of how much a couple with good credit histroy could expect to make/save in 2009 if you really went for it? Also how much time would you expect to it to take to achieve the figure?

Thanks

Richard019

Without knowing your earnings/committed outgoings it's pretty much impossible to tell you. (it's difficult enough even if we know because of the other variables)

At the moment with interest rates so low slow stoozing (buying on a 0% purchases card) seems to me the best way to do things as there are no initial fees.

Fast stoozing is still profitable but unless you have an offset mortgage you need to be getting good deals on your savings and long deals from the card issuer or the fee will destroy your profit.

It also depends when you're mortgage is up for renewal. I'm in the process now of dropping down the level I stooze at so that when my mortgage deal is up I don't have any issues caused by too many recent applications or too high a credit availability.

Any

Hi Pythagorous,
As Richard say, you didn't exactly put enough info for us to be able to advise how much can you make.

For beginners I would suggest slow stoozing as well, at least for few months to make sure you can keep on the top of the things and I find it fun (but then, I might be sad). And hopefully the rates will go up again soon so then fast stoozing will be better again...

I at the moment slow stooze as well - I spend on my M&S card for fuel, just bough holiday (jupiii), all the Christmas presents... This is my second month running and I have £1400 on the card. Which means £1400 in my NatWest 4.5% (I know, should have gone for Tesco at 6%!!!) for the next 10 months... And I will be adding up. So after tax I will earn just on this £1400 about £41... But also M&S gives me points to spend at M&S for every £1 I spend... I have now about 712 points which is £7.12 to spend at M&S.. (I love their ready made lasagne you see... That is where my vouchers will be spent! And the best thing is, that I won't have to spend half of evening cooking!!:-))))))))

MJS996

I got myself a Halifax 0% purchases card back in February for slow stoozing and I'm now up to £9k on it.
I had the money in Icesave and sweated on that, and even when I got it back, I figured that overall the aggrevation probably wasn't worth it.
With lower savings rates as well now, I'm almost certain it's not worth it, I'm convinced I would be better off with a cashback card - most of my spending is fuel so thinking about the Abbey card at the moment.

Cheers
Martin

Any

MJS996 wrote: »

I got myself a Halifax 0% purchases card back in February for slow stoozing and I'm now up to £9k on it.
I had the money in Icesave and sweated on that, and even when I got it back, I figured that overall the aggrevation probably wasn't worth it.
With lower savings rates as well now, I'm almost certain it's not worth it, I'm convinced I would be better off with a cashback card - most of my spending is fuel so thinking about the Abbey card at the moment.

Cheers
Martin

Yeah, I agree it was horrible!
Fortunately at the time I had my money in NS&I ISA (at that time it actually paid SOME interest, now it's not worth it WHAT SO EVER). And the worse thing was that noone saw it coming!
But there is still few instituitions out there who are reasonably safe...

MJS996

Any wrote: »

Yeah, I agree it was horrible!
Fortunately at the time I had my money in NS&I ISA (at that time it actually paid SOME interest, now it's not worth it WHAT SO EVER). And the worse thing was that noone saw it coming!
But there is still few instituitions out there who are reasonably safe...

Mine's with Abbey now, at 4.5% but by the time I take 40% tax off that, I can't help but think I'd do better with their cashback card giving 3% on petrol and supermarket shopping...

Any

It is certainly different calculation all together if you are 40% tax payer..

Pssst

M&S credit card currently offering 10 months interest free credit. I'll bet that these offers get pulled soon.

Milarky

How long is a piece of string? (Well you did ask)

Generally speaking it is not possible to know how much credit a new application would be granted. The only 'sure' things are the terms of any particular offer and the prevailing rates of interest (including mortgage offset interest) which are then in the balance.

You'll be lucky to get 4% net on savings against a fee of 3% for most new cards. That is 1% of the average outstanding balance. If, in your first year you averaged £10,000 outstanding that would be about £100 profit (for argument's sake)

Better to go with 'slow stoozing in many cases. Suppose your average monthly spending is £833. Then in 1 year you could generate as much in cashback (@1%) than the above stoozed amount.

Suppose you get a card offering 0% on purchases for 6 months and spent @ £833 for four months (meaning the last month's purchases were still interest free for 60 days) Then, compared with the cashback example, you would have 'banked' £833 for four months, three months, two months and one month longer - which is equivalen to annual interest on about £700 - say £28 net. If repeated this twice (with two cards) the saving is about £56. If repeated with a single card but with 12 months on purchases then its equivalent to £3800 for one year - of about £150 of additional saving.

Generally speaking, stoozing via balance transfers looks quite marginal compared to slow-stoozing via spending. However you only have one lot of annual expenditure but can have multiple balance transfers in place given sufficient time.

Pythagorous

Thanks for everyone's thoughts. I was really just after a rough idea if the effort is worth it. I can pick up some 'easy' eveing work that pays ~30 quid per hour, so probably better spending the time on that if I need some extra cash. Cheers again guys.