Help Juggling Credit Cards

Dumplin

Hi All,

I need some advise. We have got ourselves in a bit of a mess with our cards. We owe between us £24k, (£37 inc loan) we are not in arrears but we are sure there is an cheaper way of paying things off.

I have
Barclaycard limit of £11700 Balance of £3900 @2.9% and £5200 @6.9% for life of balances currently paying £200p/m.

Virgin Visa limit of £6000 Bal of £4000 @14.89% paying £100p/m

Abbey visa limit £2500 Bal £1800 0% till May 05 paying £50 p/m

Available
Abbey mastercard limit £7500 Bal 0 offered 3.9% till May 05
RBS visa limit £4300 Bal 0 offered 7.9% life of balance
Tesco limit £1400 Bal 0 offered 7.9% life of balance

Hubby has
barclaycard limit of £7900 balance of £4423 @2.9% and £2046 6.9% for life of balance currently paying £145pm.

Abbey Visa limit £8200 balance of £2800 @16.62% paying £100 p/m

available
Virgin visa limit £2000 0% till mar 05
Mint limit £3800 offered 6.9 for life of bal
Texaco £3500 offered 3.9 for life of bal
Also have citibank limit £4360 checking any offer.

I also have a personal loan with A&L otriginla loan £15k balance to clear £14000, 41 months to run @ 6.4% payment £364

bewteen us we pay £545 per month (£899) inc loan

I think I cocked up when I did the barclaycard bt's saw it as an average of 4.9% but it's not.

Any advice as to what I should move to where would be really apreciated.
B/C are now doing 5.9% for life to max £5k max should I clear these then move some back?? or get second loan to clear best I've had so far is 5.8 from AA (not confirmed) I just cannot see what to do for the best.

I estimate as we are currently paying things off it will take between 36 & 49 months to clear.

Many Thanks in advance

Dumplin

Margaret_Millne

You need to move your  hubby's Abbey Visa and your Virgin Visa debts as soon as possible - they are costing you very dear.  Shift £3500 of it to the Texaco card at 3.9% for life.

Basically move as much of the debts as possible - highest rates first of course - to low "life of balance" deals.  This will at least give you a bit of breathing space while you sort out what else you can do, without the problem of having to continually look around for new deals.

You do appear to have screwed up a bit with Barclaycard.  Even so, I think if you do the sums you will probably still be better of than transferring out and back again at 5.9%.

0% until March isn't much use to you, as the rate will probably then go sky high - don't fall into the trap of using that one.

Have a good read of Martin's "Credit Card Shuffle" article, which will guide you through the process much better than I could.

The problem I see with taking out further loans is that you are then left with credit cards with lots of credit available on them, and if you are not careful you will be back to square one in no time.

You will find lots of help on here - good luck.  If it is any consolution to you we are currently working on credit card debt more than twice yours, and none of it is at more than 6.9% - most considerably less.  Until I found this site almost a year ago I was in exactly the same position as you, but with careful planning we are making inroads into it.