Prepaid Mastercard

countrymusicfan

My way of getting out of debt is to cancel all my DDs and buy a prepaid Mastercard. I will use that to pay my ISP and Sky. I can't get into debt and I will be in control. Best of all, no bank charges. I am going after the bank for my charges, and then closing my account. I will be in charge of my fiances instead of a fat cat who gets hundreds of thousands every year. I will climb out of this hole and use this to get back on tract. :j

Buffythedebtslayer

Do you have pay a fee for such card, I have seen them advertised and thought for me they might be a good way to "save" for gift buying?

1carminestocky

countrymusicfan wrote: »

My way of getting out of debt is to cancel all my DDs and buy a prepaid Mastercard. I will use that to pay my ISP and Sky. I can't get into debt and I will be in control. Best of all, no bank charges. I am going after the bank for my charges, and then closing my account. I will be in charge of my fiances instead of a fat cat who gets hundreds of thousands every year. I will climb out of this hole and use this to get back on tract. :j

How many do you have?

1carminestocky

Whilst I accept it's not for everybody, the UW pre-paid Mastercard cashback card certainly pays more cashback than any other 'similar' card out there! An ongoing 5%, not 5% for the first 3 months and then down to a paltry amount afterwards. Of course, you need to be a Utility Warehouse customer to take advantage as the 'cash' is credited to your UW bill each month. There are currently approx 30 retailers who py the 5% cashback, but these include huge High Street names like Sainsburys (includes fuel), Boots, Halfords, House of Fraser, Homebase etc etc. AFAIK, you only need to take one service to qualify for this (I'm not a customer but I am currently looking into it). Regular Sainsburys shoppers (for food and fuel, for instance) could certainly get a very sizeable discount off their utility bills (a family, say, spending £150 per week at Sainsburys, including petrol and electrical goods/clothes etc) would, even after taking into account the costs of the card, see a rather handy £373* annual discount off their UW utility bill. I genuinely don't think it's something (especially on a money saving site!) that should be dismissed without further investigation.

For instance, I am today travelling to my local Sainsburys to hopefully pick up the Medion Akoya netbook at an amazing £176 (reduced from £299 and far cheaper than anywhere else). I will pay for it on my bank debit card, but if I had a UW cashback card I could simply pay for it on that and get £8.80 off my UW bill....plus all the nectar points. These things soon add up (my wife came back on Friday evening having spent £115 at Boots on her debit card. That would have equated to £5.75 discount off the UW bill, plus her Boots points)


* £1 per month charge for having the card, plus 35p for each deposit. 12 monthly deposits = £4.20 + £12 = £16.20. Total annual Sainsburys shopping at £150/week = £7800 x 5% = £390 - £16.20 = £373.80

countrymusicfan

Yes, great idea, but I live in Inverness, no Utility Warehouses up here, and the only store on your list up here is Boots.