Which option would be best for me to pay for car repairs?

trashbat_2

Hi,

I need to pay for an expensive (~£750) repair to my car, which I use to drive the 100 mile round trip to work and back when it's my turn in the lift share. I'm currently pretty broke after paying for my wedding, and I already have the following debts right now:

• Tesco Loan - £10,000 at 6.4% APR, originally took it out to buy the car, been paying it off at £200 a month for just over a year.
• Lloyds Classic Plus bank account - £3,000 overdrawn(!), on an agreed limit of £5,500. I'm so heavily overdrawn because the costs for the wedding overran beyond what we'd budgeted for, as they do.
• John Lewis credit card, got it to buy my wife's laptop for her because of the introductory 0% for 6 months offer, still got about £150 to pay off, just started paying a small amount of interest on it because it's been 7 months now.

I've never really had a credit card before apart from the John Lewis one, although the bank manager persuaded me into getting one of those Lloyds Airmiles Duo cards last time I was in there, for online purchases. Haven't even opened it yet, but don't think the APR is particularly good, 16% or something.

What would you do in my situation, to pay for the repair? Go further overdrawn? Use the Lloyds Airmiles or JL cards? Or take out yet another 0% for 6 months type card, and if so then which one?

Moggles_2

Have you checked whether your Lloyds Airmiles or John Lewis cards are acceptable? Some trades won't take credit card payment or charge a premium for doing so.

Alternatively, a few rather special cards will allow you to transfer an overdraft to them, (in other words, transfer cash from the credit card to your current account), at balance transfer rates. You need:

a card issued by MBNA (e.g. Alliance & Leicester, MBNA itself, Sony, Virgin), Egg card or the Post Office card

You then have funds in your current account with which to pay for the repair and, depending on your credit limit, some of your overdraft.

To maximise the 0% period, 16 months is currently available to new customers from Virgin. A 4% handling fee applies, but there are no other charges during the introductory 0% period..

http://uk.virginmoney.com/credit-card-v3/

On receipt of your new card, you can request the transfer of funds to your current account. It's best to do this when you call to activate the card. (There's a dedicated, Freefone number).

Virgin will allow you to transfer up to 95% of your credit limit. The money arrives in your bank account in about 6 days

trashbat_2

Thanks for all that, Moggles - the Virgin card sounds like it would be just what I'm looking for, as I could kill 2 birds (overdraft + repair) with 1 stone. I'll look into it in more detail when I get home this evening. Cheers!