Credit Card Shuffle Discussion area

WomanInAPickle

Trying to keep my head above water until my house sale goes through and hoping there's someone out there with a mathematical brain! I'm wanting to do a credit card shuffle.. I've been refused further credit and my options are limited due to the size of my debt but I'm sure I could save money. I'm just totally befuddled and can't get my head around it, can anyone help?! Here's my situation:

HSBC Mastercard, 1.74% Monthly Rate, Current debt £8,386, Credit limit £10,000.

Barclaycard, 1.667% Monthly Rate, Current debt £9,789, Credit limit £15,000.

Virgin, 1.4352% Monthly Rate, Current debt £9,227, Credit limit £11,500.

Barclaycard are offering me 0% interest on balance transfers until May 2014. Online it says there's £3,700 available for a balance transfer with 2.90% handling fee.

Virgin are offering me 0% interest on balance transfers until January 2014. They've said they can offer me a balance transfer of £1,600 with a 5% handling fee.

Presently I'm paying a fortune in interest and very little off the debt. I'm sure with a bit of clever shuffling I could improve my situation. Any ideas anyone?!

sfax

I would make 2 transfers to the max allowable from HSBC to the other two. You'll easily save money in interest but bear in mind if you don't start paying off more than the minimum you'll be in the same situation in 2014, possibly worse depending on the available BTs. And always pay more than the minimum payment, even if only a£1 more. Paying just the min puts a marker on your credit file

grumbler

Is it not possible to make several smallish transfers between V and B thus making both balances 0%? Then top up both to 90% by transferring from HSBC?

zerog

grumbler wrote: »

Is it not possible to make several smallish transfers between V and B thus making both balances 0%? Then top up both to 90% by transferring from HSBC?

Yes, but it would require someone with a "mathematical brain".

grumbler

Well, assuming 3% BT fees, 90% limit on BTs and ignoring the interest:
£3700 V-->B BT
£4800 V<--B
£4700 V-->B
£4500 V<--B
£1106 V-->B
£775 V<--B
Final balances £9505 at B and £10098 at V, all at 0% excluding the last BT fee at V.

Barcl can take about £4K more from H, Virgin can take about £250.

WomanInAPickle

Thanks everyone for your suggestions... should've mentioned I'm blonde!

I'm going off now to put @grumbler's figures into a spreadsheet and see if I can get my head around it! Do you know whether they will let you do lots of small transfers on the 0% deals to achieve this? I kind of presumed you'd have to do it in one hit

snowsuit

Hi,

I have a balance transfer question and would be grateful for any advice anyone can give.

I have an HSBC credit card and earlier this year I opened a Barclarycard to take advantage of an interest-free transfer offer. So I currently have

£3700 on HSBC
£800 Barclaycard at 0% until end of september

This month both HSBC and Barclaycard have written to me offering 0% on balance transfers. My question is, how is it best to do this? I hopefully have around £1000 coming from the sale of a car later this month which I'm going to use to pay of some of my balance. Should I pay off the Barclaycard then transfer money from the HSBC to the BC, or should I try to swap balances (transfer from HSBC to BC and from BC to HSBC) and use the £1000 to pay off the higher balance (HSBC)?

Sorry if that's confusing but if anyone has any advice that would be great. I think my issue with doing a balance swap is the idea that the cc pays off the lowest rate debt first.... CONFUSED! should have paid more attention in GSCE maths I think

grumbler

And the limits are ...?

snowsuit

hmm... i know the limit on the hsbc card is 5000. i think the barclaycard is low because it's new - i think it's 2000.

mmcginnni

Hey folks, I'm new to the forum and just have a small question.
I have two credit cards, a Barclay one who's 0% balance transfer has ended so I will now be paying almost 25% interest on my £700.
I also have an ulster bank credit card which I have successfully paid off completely. The Barclay card is offering my a further 0% offer on new balanced transfers until October 2014.

My question is, can I take the £700 from the Barclays, put it onto the ulster, and then put it BACK to the Barclays to claim 0% on the transferred balance? I am aware that I would have to pay around 3% for at least one of the transfers, but would there also be a minimum time the money would have to rest before returning to the Barclay card?

I hope I'm explaining this OK. Thanks for your help!