Life of balance cards

telfer_3

I have a Capital One Platinum card (the life of balance one which I think is 4.9%) I have a few thousand to pay off on this. Basically I'm treating it as a cheapish loan by paying the minimum payment by direct debit and also adding the odd one off payment. I know that this will take a while to pay off in this way but is this the most sensible way to do it?

Thanks

David

zcaprd7

Quite important to know the APR - if its 3.9% then yes (in fact don't worry too much about extra payments).

If its 5.9% then its not bad but it might be worth looking at balance transfering some of it away to a new 0% card and keep moving that debt every 6 months to a new 0% deal?

Reaper

If you are trying to pay off debt much better than paying off the minimum payments is to pay the amount of the first minimum repayment and keep repaying at that level. Read Danger! Avoid Minimum Repayments to see why.

telfer_3

Thanks for the advice. I think I probably will stick with this card as the reason I chose it is that I would need to discipline myself to move cash around every six months to a new 0% card. I will howver try to pay off more than the minimum payment every month (rather inconveniently thet won't accept a direct debit - funny that.)

zcaprd7

telfer wrote:

Thanks for the advice. I think I probably will stick with this card as the reason I chose it is that I would need to discipline myself to move cash around every six months to a new 0% card. I will howver try to pay off more than the minimum payment every month (rather inconveniently thet won't accept a direct debit - funny that.)

They should take a DD for the minimum and then you could set up a standing order for some extra?

Galstonian

You can usually use your current accounts online access to set these up.