Working out balance from interest rates

Jboy

Hi experts!

On my statements I have three seperate interest rate% and charges.

There are breakdowns for the daily rate, the per annum rate, the amount charged and obviously the total owed.

Is there a formula for working out the amount OWED for each of the interest rates?

dylanuk

It's difficult to say without seeing exactly what figures you have... but, you would need to know your total balances for each transaction category.. then you could probably do something like:

£500 cash: ((AnnualCashRate-1)/12)/100 * 500 = Monthly interest charged on £500 cash
£700 purchases: ((AnnualPurchaseRate-1)/12)/100 * 700 = Monthly interest charged on £700 purchases.

This won't be exact, but it'll be close enough (e.g. probably by pence).

If you then add them all up you should be able to check it's right against the total interest charged.

* The -1 and /12 convert the annual rate to a monthly rate (removes compounding and divides by 12 months).

Jboy

Thanks!

I've used trial and error and THINK I've got a figure for each rate that checks out.

£275 on the purchases and balance transfer
£3000+ at the higher rate for cash!

If I pay enough we'll see how correct this guess is next statement and the one after (by then the interest for purchases and bal transfer should read £0 and it should be all interest at the higher rate.)

dylanuk

Do you really have £3000 in cash? Have you been withdrawing it?

Do you have another credit card you could pay it off with? Even if you just moved it to a purchase on another credit card you'd save a lot in interest.

Jboy

Yep I'm afraid it makes sense that it's well over £3000.

I don't know if it's better or worse that the vast majority of that amount is pure interest built up over the years - either way it's another wake up call.

I have no room elsewhere to move anymore, but It'll be gone soon as I'm snowballing this card. 39.95% pa is apalling!

dylanuk

Good luck with it

Jboy

Update:

Yep my suspicions were proved. Interest charged this month is 9p (trailing interest?) at the lower rate (purchases/bal transfer), and the remaining £3400+ now at the high 39% rate for cash!

Wish me luck!