How to pay off credit card debt paying least interest

bunos

I have £6000 on a barclay card, Virgin £5100, egg £3900. I am paying minium payments which before the egg transfer was £135 barclay (interest £64), £120 egg (int £72) virgin £69 (int £68, min due to double next month) I will not be using these again and need to start paying off. Not sure how to do it. i cant pay any more than i am on min payments so prepared to reduce debt over next 3-5 years.
I have applied for balance transfer to move the egg debt to the virgin card at 12 month 0%. Not sure how to tackle the rest?

I am thinking few strategies
1. get 5 year loan to pay off barclay card which at 7.9% would be £122.
Then after 12 months transfer virgin balance which will be about £7k something onto barclay card on a 0% and do it that way.

2. or i have 10k credit limit on barclay card so could move £4k from Virgin card onto that now, i think this would be at 6.9%. which would just leave £1000 on virgin card at high interest and the existing £6000 on the barclay card.

3. get another credit card, but not sure iwill get one now with 15k worth already over 3 cards, i have been declined for nationwide already

pretty lost with this now, any advice would be appreciated.

redpete

You haven't said what interest rate you are currently paying on each of the cards - this makes a difference to the best strategy.

1. get 5 year loan to pay off barclay card which at 7.9% would be £122.
Then after 12 months transfer virgin balance which will be about £7k something onto barclay card on a 0% and do it that way.

No guarantee that you will be able to get a loan, certainly not one that cheap (unless you know different and have an offer in your pocket). Any lender should reject you on affordability given that you are stretched by your current debt and as far as they are concerned you will be increasing the total amount of debt.

Why will Virgin balance increase if you are not using it and you are paying more than the monthly interest per month?

2. or i have 10k credit limit on barclay card so could move £4k from Virgin card onto that now, i think this would be at 6.9%. which would just leave £1000 on virgin card at high interest and the existing £6000 on the barclay card.

This certainly looks a good option especially if the 6.9% is a life of balance offer.

3. get another credit card, but not sure iwill get one now with 15k worth already over 3 cards, i have been declined for nationwide already

I'm confident enough to say you will definately not get another card with anything like that credit available, you might find you won't get one at all.

Having made the first step you need to use any spare cash to pay off the card charging the highest interest rate whilst keeping the others at minimum payments. Once the first is paid off then moce onto the next. Search for Snowballing, there are links from this site that give you a Snowball Calculator that shows how this speeds up paying off this type of debt.

Best of luck (not that luck has much to do with it).