Interest free credit??

GAILEY

Hello,
Hope those much wiser than me can give me an idea of where to start
I have spent the day looking at new (to me) vehicles and now have a rough idea of what sort of money I need to spend to get something with the criteria I want.
I have a part -ex vehicle which may well be better sold privately (I have asked the various dealers for their "best offers" but am not holding my breath.
I also have a second vehicle being prepared for sale - all of which monies will eventually go into the car pot.
My OH suffered a redundancy at the beginning of the year and got a decent payout, which is invested in various ISA's, fixed bonds, special rates regular savers accounts all fed from an instant access account with the remainder of the money in, together with an amount paid to overpay our fixed rate mortgage at the allowed overpayment level.......
What I want to find is some way of obtaining free or very low interest credit for a max of 9 months..to tide me over until our year period is up for the bonds and regular savings accounts so we don't lose the interest payable on the 12 month anniversary of their inception...
I hope that makes sense.... Of course the real idea is to get the maximum money in for the 2 vehicles we already have within that period so the money to find is a lot less. The dealer is doing finance .....but its 7% - and I'm sure it will have lots of extra rubbish attached to it too.

Any ideas?

chalkie99

Check the 7% rate you mention from the motor dealer as they have a nasty habit of quoting a flat rate rather than the normal APR so it's not a true comparison with rates from banks etc.

CLAPTON

work out for each saving pot you have how much interest you will sacrifice if you withdraw the money

then compare this with how much interest you pay the finance company for the car ..you may be surprised.

GAILEY

Thanks....I'm also looking into the possibility of getting one of those 0% interest credit cards - Tesco seem to be offering 0% on purchases for 12 months....and buying it on that then accumulating the monies as the anniversaries expire to pay off well within the period.

Will check on the situation with the cancellation of the regular savers though too - for my peace of mind and just in case the dealers charge a "handling fee" if I want to pay with credit card...

YorkshireBoy

The dealer will want to pass on the 2-3% fee charged to him for accepting payment by credit card...and if he doesn't then you didn't haggle hard enough on the price!

You'll find it hard to get cheaper finance, over your stated 9 month duration, than using the M&S credit card Sterling travellers cheque loophole. See this recent thread...

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1957589