HELP With Transferring Debt From Credit Cards

MAGA_2

Hi, I’m new to the forum and having spent a while looking around I think a lot of people on here are fantastic at helping and reassuring people in trouble.

My issue is that I have 6 credit cards with a total debt of £10,800 I started out with them all on 0% deals and over the past 3 years I have transferred to a different 0% deal when the current one expired. My problem now is that I am running out of issuers to transfer to as I’m already with or have been with them recently.

Cards:

Bank of Scotland - Owe £3,561. 0% deal has ended
Barclaycard Platinum – Owe £1,060 0% expires December 2010
Lloyds TSB Platinum – Owe £2,070 0% expires September 2010
Tesco Clubcard – Owe £957 0% expires October 2010
Santander – Owe £1,505 0% expires December 2010
Egg Card – Owe £1,726 0% expires may 2011

I have been stupid and I’m now in trouble. Up until now I have paid no interest at all as I’ve always been on 0%. By Christmas all but one 0% deal will be expired and I really need to transfer a big proportion of the debt somewhere. I was thinking maybe a card where I’ll get a decent rate for the life of the balance, but as far as I’m aware they only allow up to £2,000.

I’m not in a posisition to pay it off in a year or anything. Come the New Year 2011 I’ll have around £300 per month to throw at my debts after my outgoings. Any help or advice on what to do will be much appreciated.

james32_uk

Do you have enough spare credit to clear balances off one card at a time? The issuer may be willing to at least offer you a special rate for a balance transfer from another credit card, especially if you have £0 balance on it. Ring up and ask, if you dont ask you dont get!

econnin

hmm, i'm in a similar position but i am able to pay them off fairly soon. There may be some better advice on the way.Have you got a good limit with barclaycard? i have found them really useful and they do offer 6.9% lifetime deal. You may have to transfer the balance to another card before speaking to them to get the deal. But this is risky as they may not offer you the deal, but if they do you will end up paying 2x transfer fees. They have in the past offered me 0% when i already had the balance, but it was on the remaining available balance, which is not great in your situation as you will still be paying through the nose for the outstanding balance.

People don't tend to recommend consolidation loans, but this IS an option if you can get a good rate.

You might just have to bite the bullet and throw as much money at one to clear it and see if you can get a balance transfer then, and snowball.

Hopefully someone will have some better suggestions!!

cobblers_boy

I'm thinking that maybe the time has come to pay the balances off rather than just continually shifting the debt. Do you know what the APR's will be whe the 0% deals end. If so then start putting any spare cash each month against that card whilst paying the minimums off. Are you using the cards as well or just transferring all the time?

Personally would stay away from the consolidation route. Whilst the rate may be low the accumulated interest over the life of the loan will be significantly more.

Hope you got everything resolved.

CB

MAGA_2

Hi guys thanks for the advice:D

The 0% deals have ended on two of the cards already, BOS & LLoyds cards. I can't remember what the rates are on these and I'm at work right now so can't check, but I'm paying around £55 a month on BOS card and around £30ish on Lloyds card.

I cannot go down the consolidation route even if I wanted to as a job I'm looking at going into prohibit this.

I could do with merging all the debt from my BOS & Lloyds cards onto another with a decent rate for the life of the balance and just pay it off.

As for the other cards I will just leave them and pay them off as they are.

Would I be able to shift the debt of these two cards onto one with a decent rate for life of balance? Any better ones to try?

Cheers,