slow stoozing with the halifax regular saver

fanheater

halifax seem to be falling over themselves to give free money to all those who least need it at the moment.

the extra three months free purchases they're offering on their all in one card at the moment ('exclusively for me') offers the chance to marry the card up with their regular saver, which offers 4% on up to £500 a month and obviously lasts the same length as the interest free purchases period.

this should be a way of making the slow stooze work. you could maybe get about £100 for the effort. for the halifax cash back card, spending £500 a month would get a maximum of £60 a year (most likely less), plus a little bit of interest.

my plan is just to open the reg saver, and then apply for a card soon after, and adjust the standing order to the saver to match my monthly spend on the card. the penalties for withdrawing from the saver should be a deterrant, though obviously I don't plan to do this anyway.

can anyone see any faults with this? the biggest as far as I can tell is that I'll max the card out a long time before the 12 months is up, but that's a bridge that can be crossed whenever.

I do have a couple of related questions, namely; does anyone have any experience of how easy it is to get the all in one card? i reduced my only overdraft this week in anticipation of applying for the card, and I don't know how long this will take to show up on my credit report. I have applied for a handful of things recently, like the obligatory brace of halifax reward accounts, and I will for a couple of months have two separate mobile contracts (o2 demanded a £100 bond from me, which I'll get back three months into the contract. this makes me think i'm borderline).

I have an A&L money back rewards card (limit £1500) which I pay off in full every month, and the overdraft I refer to is my only one. I reduced it from £2000 to £1200. It sits at £1000 overdrawn, and is stoozing me a pittance.

ps I already have a barclays regular saver, but even if I didn't i think the low monthly deposit limit might make it unsuitable for this purpose.

any suggestions welcome.

shaf00uk

fanheater,

You are juggling with a lot of things here and stoozing is for those who know exactly what they are doing and ALWAYS pay on time without fail.

Slow stoozes are generally not very good and now is probably the worse time to start as interest rate are at an all time low (today 0.5%) so saving rates are really bad.

But there is still some money to be made. Looking at the Halifax saver at 4% @ £500 x 12 months you can make a maximum of £130 (gross) interest. You have to weigh up if its worth the effort.

All in one card is one the easier cards to get in market but you need to have a good credit history i.e. no missed payments on anything e.g. mobile contracts. Curious why a 02 wanted a bond of £100.00. Overdraft does not make a difference on you obtaining credit as long as its authorised.

fanheater

thanks for the reply, shaf. I was surprised by the o2 bond as well. perhaps that's one for the phone board. it presumably means they'll keep it if I don't pay either of my next two bills, or else they just wanted a gesture of intent from me.

of what I'm juggling, one mobile contract runs out in a month or two and won't be replaced; the overdraft i'm using will drop again in june when the interest free part of it is halved to £500, and is dormant, and the halifax reward accounts are virtually dormant.

this leaves me with one credit card and one regular saver with barclays. my current credit card would no longer be used if i'm accepted by halifax, though I'll be tempted to keep it for when the halifax card maxes out.

i'm surprised by your suggestion an overdraft makes no difference to you obtaining a credit card, as it still counts as available credit.

a more dangerous possibility is that of a substantial base rate rise, which I have seen suggested on another thread.

shaf00uk

Correction: Overdraft does not make a big difference on you obtaining credit as long as its authorised. People have dozens of credit cards with variable limits that go into the £1,000s so one account with an overdraft does not make a big difference.

If there is a increase in base rate thats good news isn't it?? Saving rates increase = more profit from stoozing. Unless BTF increase, of course.

You should not be paying ANY interest on your credit cards/current account overdraft facility otherwise you're missing the point of stoozing.

Martin always emphasises to pay off bad high rate debts. Keep only good debts (0%) running for as long as possible.