Clearing my credit cards. Help and advice please?

williamD1964

[FONT=&quot]Hi all, [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Here’s the rub. I have three cards, of which two are 0% until October/November 2010. I have a NatWest card with £4000 on it, at £16.9%. Santander have just given me a CC with a limit of £2500, with 15 months 0%. This is not as much as I had hoped for, as I wanted to balance transfer all the NatWest card onto it, but 15 months 0% is 15 months. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Now, do I utilise the card to do a balance transfer to the limit to reduce the interest on the NatWest card or cancel the Santander card? I only have £450 to spend on the reducing the balances, which are broken down as the following:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]£175 NatWest Platinum (0% until November, with minimum £154)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]£125 MBNA (0% until October with minimum £54)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]£150 NatWest MC (16.9% with minimum £90)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] My concern is that once I max this card out, I reduce the chances of getting another card to balance transfer. Also, once the other two cards go to normal interest, I would be paying more and reducing less.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Suggestions please? Will alos post on the credit card forum [/FONT]

Butti

We really need to know what APRs these other cards will be going up to.

Your concern is;
a. The current APRs
b. The APRs after November

The aim is to throw everything at the one with the highest APR and this may change after October/November

On the face of it reducing the NW card to £1500 at 16.9% makes sense but we need to know what's happening with the other cards.

B

Tixy

williamD1964 wrote: »

[FONT=&quot]My concern is that once I max this card out, I reduce the chances of getting another card to balance transfer. [/FONT]

I would its possible you have reached your lending limit anyway. As all 3 previous cards have bigger limits the fact that santander have give you a smaller limit might be a reflection of the amount of debts you have compared to the rest of your financial position.

The snowball calculator will allow you to plug in all the figures and allow you to put in a promo rate and then the rate it will increase to after November so should give you the most cost effective way of using the new card and paying off your debts in general.

I think if I were you I would go with a strategy that assumes you won't get any more 0% cards (then if you do its a bonus, but if you don't at least you will be targeting the debts in the right order).

As a seperate issue is there no way you can increase your monthly repayments to the cards/other debts? have you been though all other items of expenditure to see you are getting the best deals etc?

corrsfan

I agree with that statement of having reached you maximum, if nothing else the payments look to be killing any enjoyment you have from your wages, from what youve said about the minimums and what you can afford, and this is without interest on approx 50% of the debt.

im not going to suggest you go to one of those "one easy affordable loan" companies, but having been in a similar situation over the past few years the easiest way is to get a (~8%) loan & be done with it. sure its not approx 3% (remember the transfer fees!) but its not 16% and a whole lot of worry either. This would also actually clear the debt instead of just shifting it, which is far to easy to do.

Having said that i dont blame you:
my last credit card was £400 limit 0%, but only cus i had another one with £5400 avaliable with rbs. I argued with them about the net effect of the avaliable ballance, now i have a card with £6000 0% 13 months till November. - yes a result but a lot of calls to them, and a worry had they said "tough luck", as i did owe 5400 ~16pc interest on yet another cc at that time. Ill be non mortgage debt free from a total of £22000 in march 2011

I started out with a 15 k loan to do my house up in a big way, overspent, BT to serveral cards and loans being repaid & re taken out just to get the best deal for another 6-9 months over the past 4 years. I belong to a credit union, which made the lowish rate loans easier to get, with the ballance going down in a fair way because of the interest free part of the credit cards in a big way. though these were not always interest free, depending what deals the cards had that i already had.