Credit card pay off or not.

noojam55

Hi,

Wondered if any savvy moneysavers could help me out.

My current situation is that I have a 0% interest credit card with a balance of roughly £450 on it. I do not use my credit card as it was only taken to split £600 car insurance over a few months as opposed to taking their pay per month credit out and being charged through the roof for it. I have been paying (this is the first month) £150 off it each month and intended on doing so.

I also have an ISA and commit around £600 to it every month attracting an interest rate of 2.3%

I am due to move into my first private flat in June and I have seen on here that credit agencies do credit checks on prospective letters. Bearing in mind this, and the fact I don't have access to any other credit, other than a mobile phone and cable television, would it make more sense to pay off my credit card now or keep it going, paying off £150 a month?

Many thanks in advance,

agsnu

It makes no difference, really. If you pay it off later than you get to earn interest on the balance in the meantime, but since this will be like 3 months interest on the decreasing £450 (so, if you're earning 2.3% on your savings, that's probably about £1.73) it's really not worth worrying about.

The credit checks are typically just to check to see if you're meeting your existing credit obligations... So unless you're not making the minimum payments on your cards, or have a large outstanding balance in comparison to your income, it's not going to have any impact.

YorkshireBoy

agsnu wrote: »

The credit checks are typically just to check to see if you're meeting your existing credit obligations... So unless you're not making the minimum payments on your cards, or have a large outstanding balance in comparison to your income, it's not going to have any impact.

I can't see a letting agency doing (or even being allowed to do) a full credit search.

More likely it'll be an ID verification exercise and just looking for Electoral Roll (possibly?) data, money laundering, bankruptcy, CCJ's, and CIFAS markers etc.

Doubt very much they'll be looking at used/available credit etc.

noojam55

Thank you both for your replies. I think I will just stick at paying the £150 a month and earn a pittance of interest on the ISA on whats in there now.

Thanks again!