Barclay Card

danouk

I know you've not asked for this kind of advice but I can't help myself.

There is no point in having 10k in an ISA earning maybe 3%, and having damned near 15k in debt at a minimum of 7% (and a lot of it is at a much higher rate I'm sure). I bet you're paying a grand a year in interest on the credit cards alone, whereas you're making £300 tops on the ISAs.

It's a no-brainer really.

redpete

afc80 wrote: »

i applied for a barclay card online yesterday. I was accepted. Cant remember which one. Think the rate is about 16%?.

i have <loads of debt>.

Anyway, im going to do a balance transfer.

Do I understand this correctly, that you are getting a new CC with an interest rate of 16% and you will be doing BTs onto this card?

And at the same time you have £10k in ISAs?

Why keep savings earning a small interest rate when you have debts paying high interest rates?

How will you make sure that in 12 months time you won't have run up the new £8k limit and still have the same amount of debt on the other cards and accounts?

i could do a lot of damage with 25 grand

The kind of damage that you wouldn't be smiling about when you try to get financially sorted.

chattychappy

re the ISA issue.

It's not just a simple matter of saving every penny of interest. Nothing beats savings for having an emergency buffer. If the price of this is paying some interest on credit card interest, it might be worth it.

If the OP uses all his savings to pay off his debt and then faces a financial crisis, he will have nowhere to go. Raising additional credit at the present time is difficult - especially if you end up unemployed. If you've kept some in savings, then you've got a buffer to meet minimums. Effectively you are staking a claim to a line of credit before it can be taken away from you.

afc80

final update - got the card today - credit card limit is 8 grand, with a £2400 cash limit, oh well, i suppose that means ill only be able to put 2400 notes on Aberdeen to win today, only joking folks.

activating the card was simple, yes, got an indian, but he didnt try to sell me anything.

have done a balance transfer, got rid of the 4500 grand from my HBOS CC, just as well as that is where my 10 grand worth of savings is.

They cant touch that now if it all goes tits up as i can be a tad irresponsible. Never miss a payment though, that is probably why these lenders love me. Im a cash cow to them.

oh, one other thing, when i did the transfer online it said that it would take 2 weeks. When i did a transfer to my RBS card it took 2 days. Why is there such a discrepancy in timescales?

chattychappy

Thanks for getting back with the outcome. Glad my prediction about limit was proved wrong.. just goes to show the general randomness of these things.

afc80 wrote: »

oh, one other thing, when i did the transfer online it said that it would take 2 weeks. When i did a transfer to my RBS card it took 2 days. Why is there such a discrepancy in timescales?

Last time I did a BT with Barclaycard they insisted on sending a letter with a reference number. I had to phone back with the reference number to confirm. They told me they did this because the BT was large. (£7000 I think). Perhaps they'll do something similar with you.

Otherwise you might find it takes a lot less than 2 weeks and they are just covering themselves.

Or... perhaps they're giving themselves to change their minds and close the account... ha ha ha!