Credit score - how good is "good"?

Raquel1808

Beatlefan wrote: »

Thanks so much guys. It never fails to amaze me how helpful people are on MSE. :T :T:T

Thanks for the tips on the Experian score. I must admit I was getting hung up on that.:o

To answer your questions izools, yes I'd rate myself well - I'm in a settled, secure job with the civil service, where I've worked for 18 years. I've also been at the same address for more than 10 years. Our house is worth around £190-200k and our remaining mortgage is just over £80k.

So we're doing okay after doing our best to use Martin's tips to get things back on track after a shaky time and paying off other debts and cards over the past few years. It's just that the existing loan and mortgage payments are still reasonably high and we'd like to try and get things down a bit.

We've thought of coming out of our fixed rate mortgage (5.2% fixed til late next year) and paying the penalty if we could get a better rate with our existing provider or a different provider - as long as my credit score was okay.

Re available credit - I've got overdraft facilities on my current account - I could go thousands overdrawn if I wanted. But since we got our finances a lot more in order over the last couple of years, I've only gone a few hundred overdrawn every so often, and even then it's paid off the next month. We're now very strict about that. Our joint current account will also let us go overdrawn quite a bit (around £700, I think), although we only normally go over by about £100-£150 on odd occasions and pay it off the next month.

My charge card would let me spend, spend, spend (if I wanted to), but it's then taken out automatically from my current account the next month, so I'm never tempted to use it too dramatically.

So my available credit doesn't add up to 50 per cent of my salary, but could be quite high if I used my overdraft all the time. It might be worth asking my bank to reduce my overdraft facility a little, especially as I only ever use a fraction of it. What do you think?

My loan balance isn't more than 1/3 of my annual salary, although my mortgage balance is more than my annual salary. I don't have any other debt, apart from my overdraft facility, which as I say we barely touch.

I last missed a payment (on my old credit card) in late 2004, but as you say this is now paid off.

We've not applied for anything credit scored in the last six months (not since my wife applied for car insurance quotes last August - for some reason they did a credit check even though we wanted to pay the insurance in one go rather than direct debit, so not sure why they credit-checked us).

I'm trying to reclaim PPI from Tesco, so may try one of the other two cards you mention! I'm a NatWest customer, so don't know if I would get preferential treatment for their on-line 0% balance transfer card as an existing customer? Probably not!

Td007, thanks for your tips. Do you know which cards allow bank transfers that might allow 0% balance transfers for my loan? I wasn't sure if you could do this with a loan or not. Are the cards you refer to the same as the ones that izools mentioned? I was thinking of settling all my loan that way. There would be a penalty for early settlement, but I'd also be due a part-refund of PPI I hadn't used which would pay some of the penalty.

Do you guys think it's worth giving an application for a 0% card a go? Or should I go for one of the high-interest ones first and then try again in 3 months or so for a 0% via a balance transfer?

Finally, you say that as I already have some other financial association, then my wife and I are already financially linked so adding my wife's name is not going make much of a difference. Thanks for that, and presumably adding her to my account won't necessitate a credit search, so won't show up on our credit files either?

Thanks again guys! :A

With regards to credit checks being carried out on Insurance quotes... On Experian my report shows credit searches on Insurance quotes on companies I've never even contacted but may have came across when looking on sites such as Gocompare. I called Experian to query this and they infromed me that this search search is invisible to lenders as a full application hasn't been carried out, just a quote. Only yourelf and Experian can see this.

Raquel1808

Just a quick query, I'm new on here and I've just replied to Beatlefan's thread above and I've somehow quoted the whole of his thread rather than just the section of it I was responding to. How do I cut the section I want?? By deleting the rest of the information in it??? Am i just being dim??

Any

Sarahjane23 wrote: »

I've found that having a small balance, say £50, on my c credit and setting up a dd to pay of the minimum amount was a useful way of improving my score - it should I had repayment ability but also that the c card company made some money fromme. If I'd paid back the whole amount each month they'd make no money from you and are probably less likely to lend to you in the future.

Rubbish. I have 7 cards, some of them the second time round and I have never paid any interest on any of them. All taken for 0% periods.

Sarahjane23 wrote: »

It's ironic though - a friend of mine (who very luckily) has never had to borrow money as her husband took care of the finances, suddenly found herself needing to borrow but couldn't as she'd had no credit history.

That is not ironic. If strenger came to you to ask you for money, would you lend him?
If friend whom you lent money before and had no problem with getting the money back came for the same amount, would you lend him?

It really all makes sense.

That is why it is always recommended to go to your own bank for your first card, because they can assess you on the way you manage your current account not just on your credit report.

Any

Raquel1808 wrote: »

Just a quick query, I'm new on here and I've just replied to Beatlefan's thread above and I've somehow quoted the whole of his thread rather than just the section of it I was responding to. How do I cut the section I want?? By deleting the rest of the information in it??? Am i just being dim??

That is right.

Just make sure there is the whole content of brackets on the beginning and the end.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

Raquel1808 wrote: »

Just a quick query, I'm new on here and I've just replied to Beatlefan's thread above and I've somehow quoted the whole of his thread rather than just the section of it I was responding to. How do I cut the section I want?? By deleting the rest of the information in it??? Am i just being dim??

Any wrote: »

That is right.

Just make sure there is the whole content of brackets on the beginning and the end.

And don't forget that you can click on the "PREVIEW POST" button to double-check that you've edited as you intended.

Beatlefan

CannyJock wrote: »

I'd check with them - lots of people get a nasty surprise when they get their settlement figure from a loan company

It's at the top end, so unlikely you'd get that but not impossible. MBNA allow you to SBT 95% of your credit limit so if you got a card with a 10K limit then that would cover it. But you've got no recent credit history from what you said before.

If I were you, I wouldn't be aiming for a 0% SBT card as a first application. I think it's unlikely you'd get enough of a limit to work with - unless you have some savings that could be raided to top up the SBT?

I'd be thinking along the lines of a 0% purchase card, with the aim to basically live on that for a year and save every penny you can towards clearing the loan. How long would it take you to pull together £8-9K if all your monthly outgoings were on a credit card?

You can make use of a 0% purchase card regardless of the limit on it, and it'd test the waters to see what sort of limit you're offered. I'd use that as a guide for a "second" application 3 months later. If you get a 0% purchase card with a large limit then check with your family if they've got any large purchases planned that you can put on your card and they can give you the cash for

Thanks for the tips Canny Jock :T - do you mean effectively to pay for our food shopping, petrol, holidays, etc, on the card and stick what we would have paid out into a savings account until the 0% period is up? Great idea which I'd never thought of before, but it sounds a really good one, thanks. I don't think I'd get enough interest given the savings rates at the moment to make a huge dent in the loan, but any extra cash all helps!

Re Any's point about applying for a card with your own bank first - should I do that directly with my branch or would an on-line application be okay with my bank?

Finally thanks to Raquel for your help on the insurance quotes. :T We did use one or two of the insurance comparison websites last summer, so it probably did come through that route. Good to know it doesn't show up when lenders do a search though.

CannyJock

Beatlefan wrote: »

Thanks for the tips Canny Jock :T - do you mean effectively to pay for our food shopping, petrol, holidays, etc, on the card and stick what we would have paid out into a savings account until the 0% period is up?

Yup, but idea isn't to stooz it and keep the interest - more a case of building up the capital to wipe the loan as soon as possible. Will only work if you can get the settlement figure together before the 0% purchase period ends, or you can hope to transfer the balance elsewhere and keep building up the capital.

Remember that both you and your wife can apply separately for new cards.

Any

Beatlefan wrote: »

Re Any's point about applying for a card with your own bank first - should I do that directly with my branch or would an on-line application be okay with my bank?

Depends on the bank. I applied through NatWest online and it asked me to input my bank details so I knew they will be checking that.

Beatlefan

CannyJock wrote: »

Yup, but idea isn't to stooz it and keep the interest - more a case of building up the capital to wipe the loan as soon as possible. Will only work if you can get the settlement figure together before the 0% purchase period ends, or you can hope to transfer the balance elsewhere and keep building up the capital.

Remember that both you and your wife can apply separately for new cards.

Sorry CannyJock, you've been so helpful, but I'm being thick here - apart from getting the interest via a savings account, how does using the 0% card help you save and build up the capital. Couldn't I just cut costs and put money into a savings account anyway? Apologies, I'm new to this, so thanks for your patience.:)

Any

Beatlefan wrote: »

Sorry CannyJock, you've been so helpful, but I'm being thick here - apart from getting the interest via a savings account, how does using the 0% card help you save and build up the capital. Couldn't I just cut costs and put money into a savings account anyway? Apologies, I'm new to this, so thanks for your patience.:)

I think what Canny means is "slow stoozing" - you get long term 0% purchase card and buy your daily purchases on it (groceries, fuel) but pay only minimum payment (you must do that!!) and stick ALL YOUR cash into the savings account.

And then if you have for example Savings account at 4% apr and balance transfer fee at 2.5% apr (for 12 mths + obviously) then you make that 1.5% difference.

So you will keep balance transfering while earning interest on the capital and earn a bit towards the loan and saving some extra.

Not sure what you mean by "cut costs" and put the money into savings account?