What kind of credit card would I need for the following?

savememoneyplease

Hi guys

This is my first post and kind of a call for help too.

My situation is:

> I have my own business
> My wife is a full time mom
> I had 20k stolen from me last year (ongoing court case)
> I have a tenant in a property not paying (ongoing court case)

Currently I have a bit more going out that coming in due to those last 2 factors.

Plan to make more money:
The business is doing well but we are really pruning back the costs while still still generating the same revenue. This will give me more income in 2 months time.

Plan to save money:
Downgrading my car lease payments.

Soooooooo:
The results of the making and saving money wont kick in for 2 months. Plus I have a couple of debts that rack up to about 1k.

I need to borrow about 4k to tide me over, but I am not eligable for a loan. So someone told me a 0% interest card would be better.

Is that good advice?

anotherpaul_2

savememoneyplease wrote: »

I need to borrow about 4k to tide me over, but I am not eligable for a loan. So someone told me a 0% interest card would be better.

If you can get one, it's probably an option, yes. The order of preference would probably Virgin (issued by MBNA), and Egg, since they will let you transfer money to a current account - which you could make minimum payments on and pay off in up to a year.
See http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/cut-loan-overdraft-costs for details.

Alternatively, any card that will let you make purchases at 0%, but that doesn't help with paying the mortgage, loans, etc, since you can't generally pay them with a credit card (and it might be classed as a cash advance if you did!)

Having said that, if you're not eligable for a loan, you might not be eligable for a credit card either?

Ultmately, if you get really stuck, you're better off trying to explain to your creditors before you default - they may give you a short payment holiday or something.

Hopefully this is some help - good luck.

savememoneyplease

Thanks for the help guys.

One of the best cards at the moment seems to be the Virgin one. If you apply online is that legally binding? or can you do it as a test to see if you can get it??

scragend

savememoneyplease wrote: »

Thanks for the help guys.

One of the best cards at the moment seems to be the Virgin one. If you apply online is that legally binding? or can you do it as a test to see if you can get it??

If you apply online and are accepted then they will send you the agreement to sign. At the end of the agreement there will be a "your right to cancel" section which you can sign and send back.

anotherpaul_2

scragend wrote: »

If you apply online and are accepted then they will send you the agreement to sign. At the end of the agreement there will be a "your right to cancel" section which you can sign and send back.

Some of them (don't know about Virgin and scragend may have specific experience) let you sign electronically now, so there's no paper version to sign. But you do have the option to cancel the agreement immediately after you recieve the card. Assuming the card is at zero balance, you can cancel it at any time anyway.

Note that this doesn't apply to balance transfer fees. Once you ask them to make a transfer, you're liable for the fees, even if you change your mind the next day.