Is my stoozing coming to an end? Can I stop it?

stevem999

My wife and I have had a couple of stoozing cards for a couple of years now. We started off with 2 Virgin cards and got around 12k between us and it's been sat in our offset mortgage making us a bundle, thanks very much! :beer: Thanks to the old minimum payment of a fiver on MBNA-backed cards our £12k hardly dropped over the time.

Last year the Virgin promo period came to an end and we managed to get 2 Halifax One cards and a Lloyds TSB platinum card between us to cover the 12k with only 1 small BT fee. However because the CC companies were starting to cotton on, they've all upped their monthly repayments to 2-2.5% of balance each month so by the end of this 0% period we'll have eaten over £2k into our stooze pot through repayments. We can then look for other 0% cards to take the remaining £10k but I'm wondering if there is any way to get that 2k 'back again' somehow or is it a matter of applying for one of the few SBT cards, however they all seem to be charging a fee so for the 2k it might not be worth it for the gains made?

Perhaps I've missed something but it would be nice to maintain that income in perpetuity as long as we can find 0% BT cards to do it, but we'd be losing £2k of our pot each year so giving us a limited life span to stooze.

Help much appreciated!

stevem999

Bumpety bump!

75 views and no-one got anything to say? Please?

Towen_2

Why don't you slow stooze by getting hold of a 0% purchase card (e.g. Tesco's, Sainsbury's Naionwide etc..) to rebuild your pot. When the 0% on purchases run out, BT the outstanding balance in the normal way.

Towen

jobbingmusician

Slow stoozing is a good idea - my feeling is that stoozing, sadly, is probably on the way out.......:(

stevem999

Now I'm confused Towen - don't understand what you mean by slow stoozing and rebuilding my pot - can you elaborate in words of one syllable!!??

Oh hang on, brain just kicked in - do you mean:

a) to use a 0% purchase card to make my usual purchases
b) put the money that I would normally have spent on these purchases into my stooze pot whilst I get back to where I was
c) Once current 0% card ends, transfer the balance of my purchases onto another and keep the money in my pot earning interest?

Effectively I use my own money to rebuild my pot and keep 0%-ing until I decide to stop stoozing at some point in the future?

Have I got this right?

If so, the only downside would be that I'd lose my cashback on my usual purchases card which I clear each month.

YorkshireBoy

stevem999 wrote:

If so, the only downside would be that I'd lose my cashback on my usual purchases card which I clear each month.

Then why not use Egg Money...a 1% cashback card and a routing SBT card all in one?

Once you've got down to £10K owing on your £12K card and it's time to pay it back, simply apply for a new card, ask for a £12K BT (of ficticious debt) from Egg Money, pay off your £10K from the ensuing Egg Money +ve balance, and put the other £2K into your stooz pot. The result is a £12K stooz pot again.

stevem999

Thanks for the idea - it sounds good but I don't exactly understand that process. Can you just go through that step by step for me please - I think I'm losing track of who I'm getting money from somewhere in the process.

Many thanks

YorkshireBoy

stevem999 wrote:

Can you just go through that step by step for me please...

To simplify matters, assume you have an M&S card that is approaching the end of it's nine months 0% on BT's introductory period. You originally BT'd a debt of £10K from your previous Virgin card (and then closed the Virgin card). You've been making minimum repayments of 3% and, as such, your 'debt' (and hence your stooz pot) is now only £7,837 at the end of month 8.

Normally, you'd obtain a new card and BT the remaining £7,837 to it. This would obviously mean that your stooz pot had declined by £2,163 over the 9 month period.

What I'm suggesting is that you apply for Egg Money, and ask for a credit limit that is only equal to 2 months normal spending (plus a safety margin to suit your own circumstances) - as a large limit here could affect credit limits offered on future 0% on BT's card applications.

Now, what you'd do, is to apply for your new 0% on BT's card and, instead of BT'ing £7,837 from the M&S card, you'd BT £10K (or more!) from Egg Money to the new card. This would mean £10K cash was sent to Egg Money, placing it in a positive balance. You'd then BACS transfer this £10K to your current account, from where you'd send the £7,837 to settle the M&S account and put the remaining £2,163 in your stooz pot - thereby topping it back up to it's original £10K (ie, where it was 8/9 months ago).

Over time, your stooz pot balance would resemble a sawtooth wave - jumping up to £10K and falling gradually to £7,837 every 9 months or so.

New Egg Money Card - Stoozing Analysis.

Egg Money Home.

stevem999

Ok, now I understand it - thanks for getting that down to smaller steps for me. Obviously our stooze balance is spread amongst 3 cards at the moment but I guess there should be no reason why those 3 balances can't be paid off through Egg Money when necessary. Likewise to make it as simple as your example, you'd have to hope for a nice high credit limit to BT off into Egg Money although again, this could be done from a couple of different card couldn't it?

Oompa_Lumpa

Re the Egg Money card - if you applied for a high credit limit (and got it), could you just do a normal good old fashioned SBT to your external savings account.

No, that isn't going to work as they are not doing a 0% on negative balances!!!

So, does it only work if you have a 0% BT card (which is not a SBT card)?

I think I understand it now - the idea is that it enables you to have more cards with large balances on them as you are not just limiting yourself to SBTs.
However, how useful is this in principal as I would have thought (as a new stoozer) you couldn't have had much more than 2 or 3 cards (ie the SBT ones - Virgin, Egg etc [and these are SBTs] on the go at any one time due to the amount of credit checks on your file.
Though perhaps I am missing something.

HGLTsuperstar

Oompa_Lumpa wrote:

Re the Egg Money card - if you applied for a high credit limit (and got it), could you just do a normal good old fashioned SBT to your external savings account.

No, that isn't going to work as they are not doing a 0% on negative balances!!!


But it wouldnt be a negative balance, it would be taking the positive to zero if you got a 0% deal elsewhere and used Egg money as mule, the CL on Egg money would be immaterial and the lower the better to free up to apply elsewhere!
Missing the "mule with positive balance" point here!