With credit card debt should I not even bother?

misslinaoh

Hi

Apologies if this has come up before but I can't see a relevant thread so far.

I have been renting constantly for almost ten years. I have never missed a payment and have always got on well with my landlords. My partner has rented separately for two years, no missed payments, and we have been jointly renting our current house for 18months, again with no problems.

Having rented for so long and nearing 30, I really feel I want something to show for all the money I pay out and we would love to buy. We have a combined income of around £40k and a further ten or so from our small business.

The thing I am worried about is that I have around £10k of debt, mostly as a hangover from student days and when I ran a small company in my early 20s. I always make repayments but unfortunately it is never much more than the minimum. I swap cards for 0% deals though and it is slowly going down.

Will this count against us when we apply for a mortgage? My partner has £1.5k on a credit card but that is it.

Should we not even bother or will the fact that I do manage my debt regularly be seen positively?

Any advice would be much appreciated,

Thanks

sims22

I don't think having credit card debt itself is a barrier but it will most likely influence how much you can borrow. My husband and I have both had loans (car/home improvements) when we've applied for mortgages and so provided you can afford the mortgage payments and still pay off your debt, you should be fine.

It is worth using one of the many online calculators to see how much you can afford to borrow and whether it is worth applying.

_Andy_

How much deposit do you have saved up?

misslinaoh

_Andy_ wrote: »

How much deposit do you have saved up?

We will have at least £10k in deposit thanks to both of our parents saying they want to give us £5k each as they did with our siblings, and my partner is likely to receive some sort of inheritance later this year, although we don't know how much yet and wouldn't want to rely on it...

_Andy_

Personally I'd suggest waiting until you've cleared more of the debt then.