MSE News: 'Stoozing' primed for Oxford English Dictionary

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"The word 'stoozing' could soon find itself in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It is used by MoneySavers to describe borrowing cash on credit cards at ..."

Read the full story:

'Stoozing' primed for Oxford English Dictionary

Reaper

I certainly use the term. On MSE there was once a vote what to call it and "stoozing" didn't come close, but despite that it quickly took over.

BTW I can't help feeling this should be on the credit card forum rather than savings - there is actually a MSE forum called "Stoozing: Free cash from credit cards"

wizk1

"The practice makes some 'stoozers' £100s each year but they have faced difficulties in recent years as lenders caught on and tightened their terms."

I don't see why. It doesn't matter if the money was invested in a savings account or to pay off another CC debt, the money is still owed to that institution.

YorkshireBoy

wizk1 wrote: »

"The practice makes some 'stoozers' £100s each year but they have faced difficulties in recent years as lenders caught on and tightened their terms."

I don't see why.

The 'difficulties' referred to are the BT fees which have been widely introduced/increased, and the savings rates now on offer, meaning worthwhile profit is now nigh on impossible to achieve with 'fast-stoozing' unless you have a poor fixed rate offset mortgage (or are prepared to gamble with the funds :eek:).

wizk1

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

The 'difficulties' referred to are the BT fees which have been widely introduced/increased, and the savings rates now on offer, meaning worthwhile profit is now nigh on impossible to achieve with 'fast-stoozing' unless you have a poor fixed rate offset mortgage (or are prepared to gamble with the funds :eek:).

It was the comment about the lenders tightening their terms I was getting at

Reaper

I have happy memories of stoozing - lots of spreadsheets, reading T&C and tips on MSE (sounds bad but it was fun really!). At the peak I had £80,000 on credit cards at 0% with no fees and the money all went on my offset mortgage, helping me pay it off much earlier than I otherwise could have done.

Sadly those days are gone. Now it is lots of work for small returns and I long since gave up. It is now much harder to get lots of large limit credit cards at the same time because they now look closer at what you have already, and secondly the credit card fees put a big dent in the profits.

noh

Reaper wrote: »

I have happy memories of stoozing - lots of spreadsheets, reading T&C and tips on MSE (sounds bad but it was fun really!). At the peak I had £80,000 on credit cards at 0% with no fees and the money all went on my offset mortgage, helping me pay it off much earlier than I otherwise could have done.

Sadly those days are gone. Now it is lots of work for small returns and I long since gave up. It is now much harder to get lots of large limit credit cards at the same time because they now look closer at what you have already, and secondly the credit card fees put a big dent in the profits.

It's more the drop in interest rates thats made stoozing no longer worthwhile. Finished all my credit card stoozing this summer.
When you could get 6% plus on an instant access savings account a 3% balance transfer fee was acceptable. Now with 3.25% available on instant access it's not viable.
Things have changed so much that i am now stoozing with my offset mortgage, the rate being 1.5%, have drawn all the offset pot (100%) out and put that in an instant access account.

wizk1

It is a shame really. I only started stoozing a few months back from the slim pickings of decent cards out there. I missed the boat big-time

Milarky

It's become so ubiquitous a term that I can't remember what I would have called it before 'stoozing' became the standard MSE term. 'Stooze' himself must be delighted with the fame!

cootambear

`Trout`, or old trout is a term from the supermarket coupons thread for middle aged women on the tills who are hostile to couponers.
`Gubbed`, from the gambling thread means to have your bonus winnings witheld by the betting co.s if they think youve `abused` their offers.
`Tescum` (what I made up) is a term for a supermarket with high prices and poor customer serice.

DaleN

The stoozing article needs to be updated. It talks about doing a "super balance transfer" from a 0% card into your bank account, yet the two cards that currently allow super balance transfers charge a 4% fee, which is higher than any of the instant access savings accounts available, ISA or otherwise. Therefore it is impossible to make any profit using this method.

In fact it is arguably irresponsible to suggest since people might give it a try and end up losing if they don't fully understand what they are doing. Of course if you don't understand you shouldn't be doing it at all, but the stoozing article only suggests that the last of its three methods is tricky and needs to be carefully understood, which could lead a person to think that the other two methods - including the super balance transfer method - are safe and easy.

In addition, the stoozing calculator included with the article doesn't take into account the balance transfer fee at all, so it would be very easy for someone to enter their numbers thinking they will make a profit, and not realise it will actually be a loss. I know it is intended to be just a simple calculator, but in its current form I would call it dangerous. It shouldn't be that hard to add the balance transfer fee to the calculator.