Carry on Questing

Shoe_Gal

Hi Lula

Your spends are a bit like mine (apart from Chessington)! I wanted November to be a frugal, sarahb sytle month but I need car tax, contents insurance and AA! Plus BIL's 40th and paying for work Christmas party :eek: And that's before any fun for me :rolleyes:

Lula-Hula

Morning all,

Z - thanks for words of wisdom, I do know that it's not mine really I am on a bit of a mish now so probably wont get detracted ... good to know that I'm being watched though just in case :eek::D

Wol - lay off the Angel Delight

As to cat food, I was advised to keep him on the same diet as at RSPCA for a while, but have now introudced some tasty meaty pouches for his tea. Lady in local petshop advised dry stuff for brekkie as less risk of flies etc & can then snack on the remains during the day, & wet stuff for his tea. Have to say that the wet stuff produced some fairly awesome air biscuits :rolleyes:

On to money matters, this is complex but I have every faith in your combined abilities. Sarahb has already given some brilliant advice which makes sense but I just want to know every possible option.

Current Balances & Interest Rates :

CC1 - Barclaycard £2,600 at 19% apr - yes it is high but I got it reduced to that & they wouldnt go any further - current limit £7,000

CC2 - Capital One £2,045 at 14.9 % apr - limit irrelevant as rejected interest hike on promise of never using again & closing when account cleared - so

CC3 - Co Op £1,050 at 0 % apr until December 18th then 15 % kicks in - current limit of £1200 BUT do get cashback with this & also co op member so get points too

Current Payments :

Barclaycard - minimum about £ 82 but usually pay about £160
Capital One - minimum about £63 but usually pay about £ 70
Co Op - minimum about £22 but usually pay about £ 50


The Complicated Bit :

Due to new job & very careful budgeting I have about an extra £700 - £800 on top of regular payments available for the next couple of months.

I was going to try to clear the Co op CC before 0 % runs out so can then use this card if needs must before all debts cleared in total.

It makes sense to pay off Barclaycard as highest interest rate but ...

I want to reduce my Barclaycard limit & hope to increase the Co op one so that this will be my regular use CC to be paid in full each month.

If I dont clear Co Op CC & need to use one it will have to be the Barclaycard at higher interest rate. New cambelt & full service imminent _pale_

Due to previous/current unusual work & pay & fairly low income, not being property owner in this country etc I am unable to do any balance transfers other than to Barclaycard at 6.9% life of balance.


I have never missed any payments, defaulted on anything else or have any rent, council tax or other bill arrears so the CCs are my only vice ( financially speaking of course, I would happily confess to plenty of others just not here & now :shhh:)

I dont have an overdraft & my current account is with Co op - also have an empty ISA there too which I was trying to save into until sarahb pointed out just how silly that was while I still have debts :rolleyes:

I dont have any cash savings but could either stash away Child Benefit of £80 a month or as sarah suggested pay this towards the debts.

My heart & instinct are telling me to clear the Co Op card - which was always the original intention when I got it - but I know that probably isnt the cheapest option.

What are your opinions please ?

SarahNeedle1872

Looking at your interest rates, you wouldn't make that much of a saving by paying it all off the Bcard, esp as the int on the Co-op will be going up in Dec.
Why not take the psycological boost of paying off the Co-op then throwing anything extra at the Bcard?

Thats what I would do anyway...

Sx

moo2moo

Being boringly sensible its not actually costing you anything to owe cash to the Co-Op until the middle of December so why give them more cash than you need to whilst handing over 19% to Barclaycard. I can understand why you want to clear the Co-Op card but common sense says you pay off the Barclaycard bill first.

But then you're female and women never ever go with common sense. Why on earth would we? That makes life so dull.

Perhaps a 50/50 split would be better. You're already paying £160 + £50 off them each month. An additional £700 would make this £910. How about £525 to Co-Op thus halving the balance this month and the remaining £385 off the Barclaycard.Then next months surplus will clear the Co-Op card plus whatever you've stuck on it this month freeing up your usual £50 repayment plus whatevers left of the £700 you forsee having extra to Barclaycard. This will drop your Barclaycard balance to approx £2215 this month and reduce it by a further £385 ish next month £1830 (plus interest). Thats assuming you get paid in time to clear the Co-Op card by the 18th.

Lula-Hula

Hmmmmm, thanks for opinions so far :A

SarahNeedle - I like yours, but that's because it mirrors mine :rolleyes:

Moo - I like yours too & you are right, it is common sense - have worked out that paying £300 to Barclaycard this month will immediately reduce interest payable by £5 - not a great return on £300 but better than a slap with a wet fish.

However, I should point out that this £700/£800 is the total amount extra available before the 0 % runs out, sadly not each month

I wont get paid for December until my last day at work - the 18th :rolleyes: oooh the irony , so that wont be available to use, but will go towards keeping us afloat until January pay day some 6 weeks later _pale_


Hmmmm, need to ponder this some more :think:

Another option would be to keep it sat in my current account & use it to pay for the service & cambelt ...

Imagine if I won the lottery, I would be so miserable at all the decisisons & choices available :rotfl:it's a good thing I dont play it.

makeup

I think the advantage of paying off the Barclaycard, in addition to the fact it has the highest interest rates is that this means you could then transfer the other balances to this at 6.9% which is a good reduction on your current interest rates.

Aargh, just typed out a long answer and then realised I had misunderstood. I thought initially you had an extra £700 - 800 per month for the next two months but I think the reality is that you have an extra £700 -£800 in total til mid December?

Which is great anyway, that will make a brilliant dent in your debts. I think that Moo's idea sounds good, in a way would be good to clear space on a lower interest rated card so you have room for emergencys?

Maybe also think about paying the minimum to cap one and then using extra from that towards your Barclaycard.


Do you know the cost of service and cam belt?? I don't see the point in paying off your cc's only to put more debt on them when the car needs a service (unless you have room on your Co-Op card to pay for work on that and then pay off in full and then get points / cashback )

Am I right in understanding this as follows:



RE: getting increase on co-op card, if you've had it for 6 months and managed to keep it in order (as you have - ie paying on time, paying over minimum, not going over limit) then I don't see why they wouldn't consider you for an increase.

sarahb123_3

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Moo - I like yours too & you are right, it is common sense - have worked out that paying £300 to Barclaycard this month will immediately reduce interest payable by £5 - not a great return on £300 but better than a slap with a wet fish.

That £5 could get you a bottle of Pink Elephant:D Basically you are giving Mr Barclaycard a bottle of Pink Elephant each month :eek: for the privilege of having one of his cards.

If you are really determined to do something and can't wait until the Barclaycard is cleared, I would probably transfer the Capital One immediately and the Co-op in December, using the life of Balance transfer, that way they will both be at 6.9% on the card. They will be the debts Bacrclaycard will pay off first with any payments you make meaning that the original debt will still be earning interest at 19.9, but at least you will be avoiding the 14.9 of Cap 1 and the 15% of Co-op and paying those off sooner. You would also have only one cc to worry about and you could have the Co-op one as the day to day spending, points earning card.

You would just have the one debt to think about then and you could throw anything extra at it instead of having to do it between 3 cards. If you did that you would have £5700 owing on the card with £1300 available for emergencies but every month you made a payment you would free up more for that, plus if you have £800 plus your usual payments to pay in the next couple of months that would get the balance down pretty quickly. Once you get the card down to £2600 you will be paying off the expensive £19.9 debt, so you could make gtting to that your target for the year.

I know it's difficult when you are keen to get things moving and if you want to do something immediately to get the ball rolling I think it would be a good move. Only one debt to keep bashing down would be easier than three, plus if you close the Cap 1 it will improve your credit rating and make Co-op more likely to increase your limit.

I hope that all makes sense:D

Lula-Hula

sarahb123 wrote: »

That £5 could get you a bottle of Pink ElephantBasically you are giving Mr Barclaycard a bottle of Pink Elephant each month :eek: for the privilege of having one of his cards.
...

I hope that all makes sense:D

Sarah -

Well now that you're talking in terms I understand ^ it all makes perfect sense

Ugh to the thought of donating one of my precious Pink Elephants away every month :eek:

Makeup, thanks to your input & opinion too

As to the service & cambelt, there is a chance that my Dear Father may pay for it :A- he did mention this a while back saying that he felt that the car should then run for a good few years without needing anything major doing to it ... I am not however, conting on this as he does tend to forget these things :rolleyes:. I had it priced up & it could be as much as £500 _pale_ .


I dont have enough put by to pay for the service or enough space on the co op card to pay for it. I do however, have a couple of hundred sitting in other accounts that can be accessed & depending on my electricity bill , potentially another £100 there too. In other words I can actually gather the cash together to pay for it if necessary.

Anyway, I have been ruminating on this all day & however I look at it, the best thing to do is to pay the most towards Barclaycard first. I have therefore, just made a payment of £200 towards it. I have also made a payment of £50 towards the co op card so can forget about that for another 6 weeks. So, any other payments can be made to Barclaycard.

I am now seriously considering sarahs idea of transferring the Capital One card to Barclaycard ASAP, just need to calculate how much the transfer fee will be.

I dont really want to give Barclaycard any more business but it would just mean the one debt & one payment date to work towards each month & if I also transfer the co op card at a later date it would free that up for monthly useage & potential transferring back again in the future.

All this talk of transfers, makes me feel like a footie manager

Thanks to everyone for your input, opinions & advice, you are all utterly FAB :A& I would be lost without you all.

On other news, I had my first November NSD today & the only one of who has ventured outside is the cat & he had to be 'encouraged'. I also forget to mention earlier that we were woken up by the front door banging in the wind this morning It appears that 'someone' forgot to close it last night after the cat had come in. Whoops .


Off to update the all important siggy now & sup some more Elephant Juice.
It's not Mr. Barclays' - it's MINE :D

moo2moo

So combining the sheer genius of all the other suggestions into one amazing Lula Masterplan how about paying everything you can get your hands on off Barclaycard at 19% and then once that as small as you can get it (bearing in mind that whatevers left will be stuck at 19%) balance transfer everything else to it at 6.9%. Theres no point making the stuff which will be at 6.9% tiny first as it'll cost you more in the long run.

But congrats on dropping the Barclaycard balance by £200, I know how tempting it is to send most of it that way and just have a teeny weeny treat or three as well.

Lula-Hula

Morning all,

Had a nasty shock when I checked out the bank balance this morning ... all those direct debits & payments had gone - a rather shocking £588 gone in one fell swoop.

Also fallen prey to the school again; £8.50 for a photo & £1.90 for a Bonfire Night lunch at £1.95 - bangers beans & mash flippin eck :eek:

It really is most fortunate that I have small army of advisors around me . I have been struggling to comprehend about how this balance transfer business works & at first couldnt quite grasp what sarah originally said about paying off the smallest bit first.

I have also been wondering how I would enter all this into the snowball

I have just checked Captial One account to see whether they have updated my statement yet & they havent. This is indeed good fortune as I had misunderstood the balance transfer malakey & would have immediately transferred it all over, thereby increasing the interest rate to 19.9 % on the whole lot.

Having just read Moos post I now get it :idea:

If I transfer now it will actually cost more in the long term :rolleyes:. There is no point whatosever in paying anything other than the minimum on either Capital One or Co op. The main, number 1, priority & only way to handle this for the best is to throw everything at Barclaycard UNTIL it is gone gone gone. Then I transfer over whatever is left on the other 2 cards.

That's what sarah originally said :doh:

How can I have been so thick as to not comprehend this previously

Did I mention that I failed my maths O level. Twice :rotfl:

What a donut

Better go throw some more money at Barclaycard then ...