The day our stoozing died :(

Nice_guy

Hi Ladies and Gents,

Looks like our stoozing ability has come to an end!

Our FD offset mortgage opened 4 months ago and the plan was to open and use as many 0% on new purchases credit cards and stooze the money against our offset mortgage balance.

Since our offset opened we have managed to accumulate a total of £32750 worth of credit limit across 4-5 cards mostly on 12 month 0% deals. Of this credit limit we have used approx £26k and expect the remainder of our available credit to be used within December.

With this in mind I thought I would try my luck and apply for another card to carry on our spending spree. So I applied for a Sainsbury CC today and got rejected! Bummer! So it looks like I’ve exhausted my CC options. The OH has only one CC so we could apply for another card on her name.

I knew this day would come and tbh honest I'm quite surprised we have managed to get £32k+ of credit card credit within a 4 month period. God knows what we would have been able to get when they were throwing money at people.

Now we'll just leave this money offsetting against our mortgage and when the 12 month offer period ends we'll pay it all back (as I doubt there will be a fee free balance transfer card available) - and then we'll have to start all over again!

YorkshireBoy

Nice_guy wrote: »

...I'm quite surprised we have managed to get £32k+ of credit card credit within a 4 month period. God knows what we would have been able to get when they were throwing money at people.

We were up to £72K in 9 weeks back in Spring 2005 when I started stoozing...and not a BT fee in sight.

Those were the days...£240 a month net income from the stooz pot savings account!

Mutton_Geoff

Thanks to the advice of YB and others, I managed to get up near £100k on cards, burned my credit rating but earned around £4k after BT fees, tax etc in the 15 months they were all running.

Just as I thought it was all over, I've just stoozed an interest only "mortgage reserve" into an NS&I account (thanks again Martin for the weekly tip) that is set to earn £450 a month even after GB takes his cut ;-)

The_White_Horse

but how do you get the "new purchase" into your FD offset account?????

do you have to have this mythical mule card that no longer exists?

Nice_guy

^^^Wow guys that's some impressive stoozing^^^ well done!!!!

Of your 72K and 100K limits did you guys manage to spend all of this?

The_white_horse - I'm not sure i'm following your post, it's probably me just being thick! All our spending we are doing on our CC's and as we don't have to pay the CC's for upto 12 months down the line (have to pay the minimum payments) we are using this money to offset against our mortgage balance.

Paul_Herring

The_White_Horse wrote: »

but how do you get the "new purchase" into your FD offset account?????

'Slow stoozing.' Put your normal spending on the card, and put the difference between what you spend and the minimum payment into the offset account.

do you have to have this mythical mule card that no longer exists?

Egg can still be used as a mule if you want to take the hit on the BT fee I thought.

INT1

So the offset accounts, is this like a high(ish) interest rate or is it to do with putting against your mortgage?

Very impressive figures though well done :cool:

Mutton_Geoff

Of your 72K and 100K limits did you guys manage to spend all of this?

In my case the limits were a little higher but you could only BT (balance transfer) up to 90% of your credit limit. Yes, all the money was "spent" but only on deposit on high rate savings accounts then paid back.

Aldo, the offset account is something people like Barclays/Woolwich do - linky. Nowadays the limits are fairly low but I am fortunate to have a high reserve at 0.75% above base (currently 0.5%) so it works out to a cost of 1.25% for a return of 3.85% (NS&I one year monthly rate) less tax.

I see NS&I just closed the one and two year accounts Martin highlighted to new applicants. I wouldn't be confident the base rate would stay low for more than a year or so. If it went above 2.3% it would negate the stooze value of this little arrangement.

Nice_guy

Spending £72k in 9 weeks is some serious going, I thought I spent a lot. Well done though, even if I got those kind of limits I wouldn't have been able to spend it within that time period!

YorkshireBoy

Nice_guy wrote: »

Spending £72k in 9 weeks is some serious going...

I think you misunderstand (or don't know that 'fast-stoozing' exists alongside the 'slow-stoozing' that you've been doing)?

Fast-stoozing doesn't involve spending anything but time (and, these days, BT fees). It's detailed here...

http://www.stoozing.com/g_sfull.htm

Milarky

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

We were up to £72K in 9 weeks back in Spring 2005 when I started stoozing...and not a BT fee in sight

So when did fees on BTs actually begin? I seem to recall that I got a third 'anniversary' transfer from Egg - that would be in March 2006 - and their fees came in the following month (April 2006?) Interesting if someone could 'chart' the arrival and spread of with-fee offers to see how stoozing went from 'hero to zero'?

What will Stooze do now - 'out' himself like BdJ?