Credit card debt and Maternity Leave

diamond

Hello all,

I start maternity leave at the end of this week and I'm really worried about how I will meet my credit card payments.

I owe about £8k in total. My statutory Maternity pay is £106 per week. I have reduced as many of my bills as possible but is there a way other than my suggestion below, that I could pay them back the absolute minimum. What I have pasted below is copied from my post on the Credit card board. It's very long winded but I am prepared to do it. I was just checking with you guys on here if you had any ideas on how to reduce the payments. This is clearly not a good situation to be in when you are about to be earning a quarter of your income with an extra mouth to feed!

Thanks in advance

Natasha
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Hello all,

Ok this is going to be very confusing, maybe a bit long too. I prob should post this on the debt free board also.

Anyway I think the credit card experts on this board may be able to help.

I have 2 credit cards:

- Lloyds TSB Platinum - £6328 at 16.9%APR - Limit £7k
- Monument aka Providian - 1683 at 29.9% - Limit £4k

I have tried to get balance transfers to other companies but keep being refused, I have no idea why. Lloyds TSB Platinum have offered to let me increase my limit to £8.5k and a life of balance transfer for 7.9% plus a 2% transfer fee. So can anyone let me know if my following plan will work:

If I transfer £2317 from the Lloyds TSB to the Monument card and max it out to £4k. Then transfer the rest of the Lloyds TSB balance of £4011 to a temporary overdraft. (I know the bank will give me up to a £7k overdraft) This will leave the Lloyds card with a 0 balance.

Then transfer the £4k from the Monument card to the Lloyds card for the 7.9% offer.

Monument provide cheques so I then plan to pay off the overdraft with a monument cheque. (yawn I am boring myself)

Would Lloyds TSB then take a balance transfer from the Monument card again for the £4k that I have put back onto the Monument card?

This will then give me a debt of £8k with Lloyds at 7.9% for the life of balance.

I know this seems like a really long winded way but it's the only way I can think of to reduce the interest rate on the whole balance. I will be going on Maternity leave in about a week so desperately need to reduce my outgoing payments for the next 6 months as I will be get sweet nothing! Well I'll get £106 p/wk but that is pittance! My partner has left me so it's literally my income that will be paying for everything.

So my main question is will they take a balance transfer from the same card twice? Secondly does anyone have any better ideas?!

CLAPTON

Firstly ... why are you in debt when you have a good income...if it is being reduce to a quarter how will you manage?
secondly...most cc require repayments of 2% or 3% of balance per month...so moving debts arround may not reduce your monthly payments although it may reduce overall debt.

your major problem is that you spend more than you earn and that 'managing' your cc is a red herring



I would suggest you post a Statement of Affairs (SoA) here and people will give advice.

If you browse the bulletin board you will see examples but the general format is

: statement of income:

: statement of expenditure
this should be quite detailed but excluding debt repayment
: a subtotal to save us all having to add it up

: statement of all debts including
outstanding amount, monthly repayment , APR
a subtotal to save us having to add it up

also add a brief details of you situation, partner, any children, rent or own property, value of house and mortgage, any special circumstances that are relevant

thirdparty

Hi

Have you applied to have a look at your credit report with Experian. This might explain why you are finding it hard to get credit. Go online and get your free credit report and examine it carefully. If there are any mistakes, you need to contact them to get it corrected.

When was the last time you tried getting another creditcard? Which card providers do you request from?

Have you asked Monument to increase your credit limit?

Have you asked Lloyds whether you can do a balance transfer to your current account explaining that you what to get rid of an overdraft?

To answer your query, I don't see why there should be any problems doing a transfer from the same card twice since you are paying for the privilege.

harrie_2

have u checked out your meternity pay you should get 90% of your pay for a while daughter going on mertenity leave in 2 months she 6 months pregnant now i dont think she be happy with 106 from day one and she living at home debt free lucky her you could try talking 2 crediters see they take smaller payment hold interest untill u get back 2 work cab helps u do that but it takes a while 2 get a appointment good luck