Which one should I pay off first (dont understand APRS that well)

kindofagilr

Hi

I have 4 credit cards and a catalogue, I just wondered if you clever people could tell me in which order they should be paid off

1. Lloyds balance £3164.32, monthly interest on purchases 1.527% min payment each month £76.39

2. Simply Be catalgoue balance £126.87 yearly interest 39.9% min payment £12.34

3. Virgin money balance £2451.79 monthly interest on purchases 1.8735% min payment £70.58

4. Asda credit card baance £3707.93, annual interest 22.4900% min payment £111.24

5. M&S balance £4101.76, annual interest 15.9% min payment £102.54

Could you also if possible tell me what the annual interest% is for all of them, as some of them just tell me montly and I cant work out what that is over the year

That would help a lot, thank you

izools

Pay the minimum on all but the highest APR account and every other spare penny you have to the highest APR account.

The balances are totally irrelevant.

So first you plough all your money into Simply Be, minimum on all others
Then Virgin Money when Simply Be is clear
Then Asda when Virgin is clear
Then Lloyds when Asda is clear
Then M&S when Lloyds is clear

This way you will be paying the lowest interest possible.

Clearing them in any other order will cost you more.

Good luck!

kindofagilr

Thank you very much thats what we thought, well we thought we knew M&S was the best out of the bunch

Jigga

Yes, completely agree with Izools and a very legitimate question to first ask as some large organisations can be coy about their APR, preferring only to reveal the monthly interest, Virgin credit card being the one that springs to mind for me.

To calculate monthly interest to APR, amongst the many online tools, there is one here: http://www.stoozing.com/mon2yr.htm (second tool on the page).

Taking the compounded rate and agreeing with Izools’s order, you have the following APRs:

Simply Be - 39.9%
Virgin - 24.95%
ASDA - 22.49%
Lloyds - 19.94%
M&S - 15.9%

izools

Jigga wrote: »

Taking the compounded rate and agreeing with Izools’s order

Thank goodness for that, as I didn't to any actual arithmetic just what looked like the right order!

agrinnall

I don't usually look at credit interest rates as I always pay my balance off each month but I was under the impression that it's a legal requirement that the APR is shown on a credit card statement. I've just looked at my Nationwide Visa statement and it includes a section headed Interest Summary which shows the APR on Purchases (17.9%) and Cash (27.9%). I would suggest that even if it's not legally required any organisation not clearly showing the APR has got something to hide and is best avoided if possible.

kindofagilr

Thanks guys youve been a great help

opinions4u

agrinnall wrote: »

I don't usually look at credit interest rates as I always pay my balance off each month but I was under the impression that it's a legal requirement that the APR is shown on a credit card statement. I've just looked at my Nationwide Visa statement and it includes a section headed Interest Summary which shows the APR on Purchases (17.9%) and Cash (27.9%). I would suggest that even if it's not legally required any organisation not clearly showing the APR has got something to hide and is best avoided if possible.

Perhaps displaying the monthly rate makes it easier to calculate the interest charged. So it may be more appropriate to show this than the APR.

Ideally I think they should show both.

Personally I don't care - as long as they tell me when the due date is I know I won't be paying any interest.

Not sure what the regulations are, but sometimes doing something as simple as displaying rates on a statement in a slightly different way can take many months and a big IT spend to deliver.

Sunflower1227

Hi have you tried a balance transfer to a 0% card somewhere on here it tells you about the barclaycard 0% for 17 months, might be worth looking into.

If possible, I would transfer over the cards with the highest interest rate and pay off the min and throw as much as you can to the other cards you have left to pay them off first.

Jigga

agrinnall wrote: »

I don't usually look at credit interest rates as I always pay my balance off each month but I was under the impression that it's a legal requirement that the APR is shown on a credit card statement. I've just looked at my Nationwide Visa statement and it includes a section headed Interest Summary which shows the APR on Purchases (17.9%) and Cash (27.9%). I would suggest that even if it's not legally required any organisation not clearly showing the APR has got something to hide and is best avoided if possible.

Yes, well, as I quoted, Virgin are amongst the guilty parties who aren't too keen on explicitly telling us their APRs, below is how my online interest rates are displayed and the paper statement only shows the same too. Perhaps when I signed up they provided an APR, I don’t remember because I signed up on a 0% BT deal for 15 months and knew I would clear it before the vig kicked in, so I didn’t care.

Something to hide? Well, Virgin are well known for their rate jacking activities (see my previous posts – and plenty of other posters on this subject).

kindofagilr

Sunflower1227 wrote: »

Hi have you tried a balance transfer to a 0% card somewhere on here it tells you about the barclaycard 0% for 17 months, might be worth looking into.

If possible, I would transfer over the cards with the highest interest rate and pay off the min and throw as much as you can to the other cards you have left to pay them off first.

I had too many cards, now I will only have one with £4800 I am going to see if (once my other 3 accounts are closed) If I can get the MBNA one which has 5.8% for lifetime of balance