£48k stooze: managing the minimum payments

dfarry

Western.... there is no need to justify yourself.... though I kinda get the idea that you like too :P

I'm new to Stoozing and have just setup an Egg and Virgin Stooze... totalling £27K... I have been using Credit Card introductory deals for years though to hold money up in my Mortgage Offset account and effectively save alot of cash off my mortgage.....

Previously we have purchased something with a credit card and transferred the same amount of cash from our current account to a savings pot.... when it comes to paying it back we have simply transferred the money back from the savings pot and then paid it to the CC company.... If anything this is more hassle than a simple stooze and I accept that the amount of money I have stoozed at anytime will reduce over the 0% period unless I BT some of it back.

I would not want to have so much cash stoozed and have to manage all those cards and I would be seriously pee'd if I messed up one day and got hit with a hefty interest bill..... but then that's part of the stooze game. Where I am anticipating so hassle is when it comes to trying to maintain the stooze at the end of the promotion period and transfer the balance to other cards.... If my new cards are anything to go by....especially Virgin.... they have been extremely slow dealing with the application and this would need to be factored into any BT to another Credit Card well in advance.... a good 6-8 weeks I'd say from initial application.

Clariman

Hi westernpromise. I have a Stooz pot of about $55K at the moment but it has been as high as $85K. My income is not a million miles away from yours. I pay the minimum monthly payments out of the Stooz pot. Yes, it depletes the pot over time, but so what. Another thought - do you have any cards out of the MBNA stable ? e.g. MBNA platinum, Virgin, Abbey etc. If not, it might be worth getting one. Their minimum payment is only £5 per month so hardly depletes the stooz pot at all.

Most cards let you do additional BTs, but not all do (e.g. FD don't as you have discovered), so it is sometimes possible to BT the minimum payment back again. Personally, I couldn't be bothered with the hassle of doing all that.

Clariman

nh

Don't worry about it Westernpromise, I know how you feel. My partner and I have monthly income of £4,850 but it doesn't seem to go too far! It is just us too, no kids. We are saving up for a £20k wedding/honeymoon though.

After that we WILL be rich (till we have kids )

westernpromise

nh wrote:

Don't worry about it Westernpromise, I know how you feel. My partner and I have monthly income of £4,850 but it doesn't seem to go too far! It is just us too, no kids. We are saving up for a £20k wedding/honeymoon though.

After that we WILL be rich (till we have kids )

The kid herself is not that costly. The loss of income is the real killer, plus the fact that if you want a night out without her, it's £30 for a babysitter and her taxi home before you've even left the house. A night out in a cheap eatery with drink is suddenly about 70 or 80 quid.

nh

westernpromise wrote:

The kid herself is not that costly. The loss of income is the real killer, plus the fact that if you want a night out without her, it's £30 for a babysitter and her taxi home before you've even left the house. A night out in a cheap eatery with drink is suddenly about 70 or 80 quid.

Oh the joys of living in London, eh. I used to get £5 for babysitting, maybe more if I was there after midnight!

Martinslovechild

I think Peter's a bit upset!!

Martinslovechild

Ah, I once heard a saying

"he drinks to forget, but he never forgets to drink..."

Paul_Herring

peterbaker wrote:

OMG! It looks like we are attracting the thirty-something nouveau riche to this forum - I therefore vote we have one new stoozers forum for those earning loadsamoney but haven't realised it yet, and another for the rest of us who were taught to add up properly and really need to watch our stooze cashflow for survival reasons because we can't get proper jobs anymore because of the log-jam of dimwitted nouveau riche who occupy their desks whiling away their working hours posting to forums like this!

Oh dear <g>

Cheers Pete - yer post gave me a giggle anyway

westernpromise

peterbaker wrote:

How on earth have you deduced that mucking about stoozing is a better use of time than investing that time in securing your successful careers to date?

Because it demonstrably is.

Average performance at work gets me a 2% pay rise. Exceptional performance gets me a 3% pay rise.

So let me think. Work 70 hour weeks, underuse my holidays, never see my family, work in my free time and travel during my evenings and weekends, all for the possibility of being rated exceptional and getting an extra £376 a year after tax and pension.

Is that really the easiest and surest way I know to make a whopping £376? Er, no.

Last year, I made more than that just optimising the cashback on credit cards. £377.20 in fact, all based on advice obtained here. Add in all the other valuable free advice, and frankly, time spent here works out to be far more remunerative than time wasted working harder.

Plus I might get the £376 from work anyway, the whole salary review process is that munged.

smartsaver

westernpromise wrote:

Last year, I made more than that just optimising the cashback on credit cards. £377.20 in fact, all based on advice obtained here.

This thread is way off topic, but hey it's so interesting - just look at the number of viewings - I think it should stay!
What card do you use for cashback westernpromise? You have either found a card we have all missed or are a very big spender... Unless it's for business use