Help & Advice

natspratt2

I need advice .. I am desperately trying to pay off debt in as little time as possible .. my credit rating does not appear to be good .. at the moment I have trouble applying for new 0% cards, better rate loans, etc to shift debt to. My bank (lloydstsb) has offered me a personal loan of £11,400 at a cost of £283 per month over 5 years. I have the following debts to clear:-

Cahoot flexible loan - balance £8757 - minimum payment per month 178.71 - rate 8.5%

M&S store card - balance 359.68 - min payment per month £11 - rate 18.9%

Mint mastercard - balance 5290.37 - min payment per month £119 - rate 1.385% monthly on 3362.43 and 1.491% monthly on 1927.94

Alliance & Leicester visa - balance 5012.43 - min payment per month £50.86 - rate 0.0777% per month for balance transfers - 1.7366% for cash and 1.0199% retail

Next directory - balance £246.73 - min payment £23.27 - rate 26.49%

Obviously the loan would not cover all the outstanding debt but I would like to know if I am better off staying with what I have and paying as much as I can or transferring some of the debt to the new loan and guarantee paying it off in 5 years.

All these different APRs confuse me so I would be really grateful if someone could help.

savvy

Hi natspratt2

Firstly you need to get the APR rate of Mint and A&L cards, then decide how much you can afford to pay towards your debt per month. Then visit this site and start snowballing your debt. This technique gets you to pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first, whilst still paying the min payment to the others, then you would use the money you were paying and put it towards paying off the next highest etc etc. IT really does work!

I'm going to move you over to the Debt Free Wannabe board, because those guys can help you more...............especially that Southern Scouser bloke!

lynzpower

Hi there Natspratt

What you need to do is have a look at the Sticky "first time posters" by southern scouser. Do a SOA, thats all your incomings & outgoings, we can see where we can see if theres any savings to be paying off your debt asap.

Loans are not really the answer to being debt-free- this loan will drag on for 5years, lets see if we can get you debt free before then!!

and a massive :hello: and welcome from all us debt-free wannabees!

CLAPTON

as lynzpower says post a full SoA so we can see the full picture ....

and by the way, according to my calculator the Lloyds loan works out at a dreadful APR of 17%....don't even consider it

do you have PPI on any of you CCs or loans...generally expensive and rarely ever pays out.

natspratt2

hi and thanks for your replies so far .. no I have no PPI on my ccs or loans so thats a good start .. I am off to find out the apr on the ccs and will work on a full SOA for you .. not feeling quite so alone now many thanks

Me_Myself_2

Natsprat, if you don't want to go to the trouble of posting an SOA as I know these can be very time consuming, give us more details about your current and proposed loans.

In particular the missing APR's including the APR on the new Lloyds loan.