Urgent advice needed on Credit card Halifax

hamiltol

Hi everyone,

We have 1 credit card with 8100 and struggling with the minimum payment of 190 permonth, we have cut back on everything from food to internet.

The credit card is Halifax one and we are just stuckin a vicious circle as my limit was 8000 and therefore when we get our statement through we end up only being able to pay off interest every month.

We were thinking of remorgaging our house to pay this off?, i cant do a credit card transfer as i defaulted on a couple of payments last year and no one will accept me.

The other option is to extend my car loan(which ends 2013) which I'm currently paying 145 per month.

We really dont have any spare money at the end of the month and it is really getting us down so any help and other peoples credit card succsess stories would be a confidence boost for us.

Many thanks for listening to me.

Laurie

dancingfairy

Hi - adding money to your mortgage is generally not seen as the best idea for various reasons:
1) it ends up costing you quite a lot over the life of the mortgage - interest on interest etc.
2) it reduces your equity
3) it puts you at far greater risk of defaulting on your mortgage which could then lead to reposession - if you keep them seperate then there is less a creditor can do to you.
4) generally people find with the 'spare' money they have that they tend to go out and the credit cards come out and then they consolidate (or add to the mortgage again) and the mortgage goes up again and the cards are clear and then they get built up again.... it's a viscious circle and sadly there are people on here that have been there done that.
5) interest rates are almost certain to go up at some point - but when who knows?

Perhaps it would help to get in touch with one of the debt charities Martin recommends and chat things through with them such as National Debtline or CCCS or pop into your local CAB?
You might want to consider cancelling the card and then setting up a repayment plan at a level you can afford? Yes it will hurt your credit rating but more credit is usually not the answer. Halifax may or may not be sympathetic to your proposal but at the end of the day you can't get blood out of a stone and if you haven't got the money to repay them as much as they want then you can't and they will have to make do with what you can afford to give them.
Also there are loads of useful factsheets and resources on the National Debtline's website so have a look there in terms of letters to send with offers of payment etc.
Best of Luck
df

CH27

Post your SOA up & people will happily advise you.