Paying off my 2 credit card balances - advice

EdinburghKev

Hiya, I have 2 visa cards with about £6000 on each. They are both at the credit limit. About half my monthly payment goes to paying interest.

I am in a position to pay £6000 to one card or I can split the £6000 between the 2 cards. What is the best thing to do?

In a few months I will probably be able to get a 0% card and transfer remaining balancese, but this may be 4 or 5 months away.

Any advice is appreciated.

Beanietdc

Hello and Welcome!

What are the interest rates on the cards?

I believe the general advise is to chuck as much as possible at the card with the highest interest rate and then when that one is paid off you can start on the next card.

I'm sure someone will be along soon and correct me if I am wrong!

Good luck

BoltonMinx

Generally, you should pay the card with the highest APR off first. Have you read Martin's credit card shuffle article?

Broken_hearted

I would pay off the one with the highest interest and double the payments to the other one. Seeing a debt gone will spur you on to clear the other one.

CosmoCat

what's the APRs on these cards?

it might be worth just paying off the one with the higher interest. usually doing it this way (snowballing) leads to you paying less interest in the long run.

will see what others think.
all the best

BoltonMinx

Snap Beanietdc, broken hearted - both replied at the same time

Here is Martins article:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1102335753,51771,

all_hours

Pay off the card with the highest APR first then increase the payment on the other card.

You can put the balances and APRs in the snowball calculator to find out your debt free date.

http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

EdinburghKev

Thanks to all of you, I never expected such a quick response.

I am just about to read Martins guide but I will be paying off the one with the highest APR first.

The 2 cards I have are Egg & Barclaycard. Now to find out the APR on each.

EdinburghKev

Martins guide is amazing!! I have found out about the Barclaycard loophole.

What I will do is pay off the Barclaycard debt, make sure my balance shows as £0.00 then transfer the Egg balance to the Barclaycard and pay 6.9% for the life of the transfer.

I will then pay double to the card and when I can get a new card with 0% I will and transfer the balance to that card.

Time to lock my cards away and thank about the future....