Pay off debts with savings?

lipidicman

tomstickland wrote:

It's just an illusion to think "i have £8K of savings" if you also had an 8K debt.
Your total real savings are the savings minus the debt.
Then it's just a matter of looking at the interest rates.
If the "savings" pay more than the debt then that's good. If the debt costs more than the savings pay then that's bad.

I stooze money, which is in effect making a debt on 0% credit card so I can benefit from the better rate in a savings account.

When I stooze I NEVER count the stooze pot into my savings total.

Emmzi

Phoenix79 wrote:

I think i'm going to use my savings to lower my debt. I have always got my credit cards in the event of an emergency (got about £25k available credit so that should cover 99.9% of things!)

Erm...

if the emergency is 'unemployment', isn't borrowing money with no known means of paying it back fraud?

(If it's 'broken washing machine' then above does not apply?)

Phoenix79_2

Emmzi wrote:

Erm...

if the emergency is 'unemployment', isn't borrowing money with no known means of paying it back fraud?

(If it's 'broken washing machine' then above does not apply?)

Not likely to be unemployed unless its redundancy.....that would be my dream! Would clear my debts completely. I long for that day......the day when they tell me my job is going to be outsourced to a third world country!

I'd always find other work. I've done plenty of temping work and was never out of work or short of offers.

Phoenix79_2

lipidicman wrote:

EXACTLY! you will be using the same products in a more sensible way.

Repaying will improve your credit score too

Finally, pretend you still have to make the repayments - but make them to YOURSELF (ie into your savings account) and then forget about the money! When you have done this, pat yourself on the back.

Thanks

I'll remember to pat myself on my head and buy myself a pack of custard creams as a reward to myself

tomstickland

When I stooze I NEVER count the stooze pot into my savings total.

I just add up all of my accounts, be they negative or positive and that's my total.
ie; stoozing will put -£4000 somewhere and +£4000 somewhere else, so it makes no difference to my total "net worth".

Rgc_3

Phoenix79 wrote:

I think i'm going to use my savings to lower my debt. I have always got my credit cards in the event of an emergency (got about £25k available credit so that should cover 99.9% of things!)

Good luck and as soon as your debt free you ll see the savings start to grow back bigger and better:beer: