On top of my debt - almost

loopy.magic

I have approx £65k of debt. £24k of this are personal loans and £41k of this is credit cards. All of my credit cards are on lifetime low interest rates......except one; the Virgin Mastercard which is currently charging me a whooping 34.9% after the 0.1% balance transfer rate expired a few months ago.

I've tried going to my bank, who I've been with for 16 years and have an excellent record with, for a loan or credit card to tackle this last high interest credit card but get rejected everytime.

I'm fortunate enough to have recently started a new job which has boosted my income by a good chunk, I'm breaking even now but if I could transfer this last standard rate credit card to a good offer it would make my life easier, I could afford some nice things for the children and it would be a lot easier with the economic measures coming in next year.

I'm renting with my own furniture and have a spotless repayment history. Any advice?

RAS

Hi

Can you please put up a full SOA, so we can see whether there are other ways to sort this problem?

Stickie on the front page of the forum for nerw comers.

loopy.magic

Thanks, but I've already done this previously and there are no extras left to trim. The only excess now left is the Sky subscription but I'm keeping this, we have no other excess outgoings like takeaways, hobbies, newspapers and I regularly check and switch gas and electric suppliers when there are savings to be made. The children only get toys on special occasions like birthdays.

The main point is that the benefits from all of the other credit card low interest rates are being undone by the excessively high 34.9% on the Virgin Mastercard. I realise that it's unlikely to exist but what I need is a solution that would allow me to shift this high interest debt to a lower interest loan or credit card. Chances of this in the current lending climate are very low but I'm hoping someone will have some suggestions.

honeybun16

would snowballing this Virgin card first help? you could throw anything extra you have at it to clear it down fastest, the only other option i can think of it to clear enough space on one of the other cards to transfer, both of these will take some time though

MyLastFiver

I guess you've already thought of this but is there no way your can share the balance of the Virgin card around by transferring it to your existing 0% providers? Or even just some of it?

Failing that, the only way is to release more cash from your budget to get it paid off sooner. There are hundreds of money making ideas and money saving challenges on these boards. £10 here and there will all start to offset that monthly interest charge. I know it's not what you want to hear though. Cycling to work is the biggest budget saving I've made.

Can I respectfully suggest a subtle change in mindset? You want to release more of your cash so you can spend more on the kids. If it were me (not long ago it WAS me), I would be trying to release cash so I could get that CC balance down.

BLT_2

MyLastFiver wrote: »

I guess you've already thought of this but is there no way your can share the balance of the Virgin card around by transferring it to your existing 0% providers? Or even just some of it?

Failing that, the only way is to release more cash from your budget to get it paid off sooner. There are hundreds of money making ideas and money saving challenges on these boards. £10 here and there will all start to offset that monthly interest charge. I know it's not what you want to hear though. Cycling to work is the biggest budget saving I've made.

Can I respectfully suggest a subtle change in mindset? You want to release more of your cash so you can spend more on the kids. If it were me (not long ago it WAS me), I would be trying to release cash so I could get that CC balance down.

Very valid point, its very nice being able to buy things for the kids but perhaps the most important thing they can have is a roof over their heads.

65k is an enormous amount of unsecured debt and the Virgin rate is very much one which they aim at people whom they believe to be in difficulty.

I suspect there is little capacity for the migration of balances between credit cards and can only suggest looking at the snowball calculator to see where your payments are best utilised

loopy.magic

Thanks, I take your point and respect it.

Getting rid of the high interest credit card wouldn't mean me going bonkers and having a shopping spree, believe me I've learned the hard way the lessons of the credit card traps and am much wiser because of it.

If I was able to get rid of the high interest credit card it would mean increased payments to my other credit cards first with a little bit going towards making life more pleasant. The priority is to lower my debt but in life you do need the occasional treat, especially for children.

BLT_2

The OP has probably seen this before but it doesn't hurt to re-post it, its actually quite an impressive tool

http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

If nothing else it shows how much interest you could save. The minimum payments on 41k of credit card debt must be in the region of 1000 pounds a month or more, there must be some slack to juggle around the payments and reduce the virgin CC quickly.

As someone else mentioned, if there is any spare capacity shift everything you can from Virgin. Branson can fund his own balloon trips without your assistance