To tart or not to tart

sallyb79

Hello,

A year ago I took a salary cut of about £700/month to go on a training programme. This means that currently my budget is tight and I can't afford to pay back my debts as quickly as I'd like. However, I've done a snowball calculator and I know that I'm wasting money on APR's. The advice I'm looking for is whether to apply for another card with a 0% BT.

This is my situation:

Current cards:
Barclaycard £5370.26 Limit £6100 APR 27.9% (of which £804.42) APR 6.9% for life of this balance (of which £2202.81) APR 0% until April 2012 (of which £2468.89)
MBNA - £3662.57 Limit £4100 APR 17.95%
Egg £876.31 Limit £3750 APR 21.94% purchases 25.55% cash advances (of which £200)
Opus £305.20 Limit £1500 28% (this account is closed)
Tesco £1930 APR 7.9% for life of balance (this account is closed)

I am currently paying £300/month on credit card debts and cannot afford much more than this currently. I hope to be able to afford more in 2 years time when my training finishes.

I feel nervous applying for new cards as I'd ideally like to be reducing the number of credit cards I have. I have tried checking my credit rating but wasn't successful online and need to call Equifax. I have never failed on any payments on my credit card. However, I have on numerous occasions gone into my 'reserve' over my overdraft limit for which I get charged £22. I have tried to get these charges waivered but never succeeded (usually over by a couple of quid c/o poor management by me).

Any advice on how to best use my money now rather than raking up the debt over the next two years, is much appreciated.

CLAPTON

if you can transfer debts from over 20% ish to 0 % ish then it's a no brainer to do so

if you arre incurring charges of £22 a time for poor money management then it's a no brainer to manage your money better