Credit Card advice

greggp_2

outlined below are my current credit card debts - I have recently cancelled a couple of cards I no longer use and also requested a reduction on one of my cards and now I'm thinking that may have been a mistake! I will be needing to transfer some balances later in the year when the current 0% deals come to an end. Hopefully my credit rating is not affected with the recent changes to it. I earn £27k per year and have an outstanding mortgage of £125k on a property worth in excess of £300k and no other loans or Bad debts.

Any thoughts or advice appreciated please.

CURRENT CREDIT CARD STATUS
Tesco CC - £5,200 limit - £2,000 outstanding balance (currently 0% until Sept 11)
Goldfish Barclaycard CC - £3000 credit limit just reduced this from £8,500 - £1,600 outstanding balance (currently 0% until July 11)
Nationwide CC – £3,500 credit limit - £2,000 outstanding balance (currently 0% until June 11)
Virgin CC - £5,000 credit limit – No outstanding balance
Santander CC - £2,500 credit limit – No outstanding balance
Recently just cancelled Halifax CC & Barclaycard CC that I no longer use.
Thanks

BugsyBrowne

greggp wrote: »

outlined below are my current credit card debts - I have recently cancelled a couple of cards I no longer use and also requested a reduction on one of my cards and now I'm thinking that may have been a mistake! I will be needing to transfer some balances later in the year when the current 0% deals come to an end. Hopefully my credit rating is not affected with the recent changes to it. I earn £27k per year and have an outstanding mortgage of £125k on a property worth in excess of £300k and no other loans or Bad debts.

Any thoughts or advice appreciated please.

CURRENT CREDIT CARD STATUS
Tesco CC - £5,200 limit - £2,000 outstanding balance (currently 0% until Sept 11)
Goldfish Barclaycard CC - £3000 credit limit just reduced this from £8,500 - £1,600 outstanding balance (currently 0% until July 11)
Nationwide CC – £3,500 credit limit - £2,000 outstanding balance (currently 0% until June 11)
Virgin CC - £5,000 credit limit – No outstanding balance
Santander CC - £2,500 credit limit – No outstanding balance
Recently just cancelled Halifax CC & Barclaycard CC that I no longer use.
Thanks

Defiantly look like your in control of your credit,but having 16k of available credit will not do you any favors whatsoever when a lender see that!

greggp_2

Should I cancel the 2 other cards I no longer use? i.e. The virgin (£5k) and Santander (£2.5k) as this would free up £7.5k of credit. Would this not have a negative effect to my credit rating?
I was thinking of holding on to the virgin card because they do offer promotional balance transfers to existing cardholders from time to time although they have recently just changed the minimum payment rules I think.

BugsyBrowne

greggp wrote: »

Should I cancel the 2 other cards I no longer use? i.e. The virgin (£5k) and Santander (£2.5k) as this would free up £7.5k of credit. Would this not have a negative effect to my credit rating?
I was thinking of holding on to the virgin card because they do offer promotional balance transfers to existing cardholders from time to time although they have recently just changed the minimum payment rules I think.

Well having that amount of available credit you have will defiantly have a negative effect I do know.
Virgin are normally good at repeating offers as you have said so I would probably keep that card.
Also your balances are not very high and I see you still have a 0% offers on the 2 cards with balances until 2011,could you not of payed these 2 balances off by the time the offer finishes?

greggp_2

yeah going to try and lump off as much as I can off the outstanding balances before the 0% ends but think I will struggle to clear them 100% - should I cancel the santander card then in your opinion. appreciate your help :beer:

greggp_2

I just did the quick check credit rating thingy on here and - I tried a couple of options and it came back both times saying I am Mid-level risk.

Any advice on how I go about lowering this risk factor appreciated? Think I am going to check my credit rating on Equifax or Experian also.
Thanks