Freezing/Reducing Interest Charges

weebit

Hi Everyone,

It's been a long time since I've posted in these forums, and during that time my spending has gone out of control! In the past year I found myself a lovely girlfriend and we're now living together which is saving me a lot of money (yay!). However, in the mistaken belief that I can now afford it, I've been spending a lot of money doing things together and with our friends, and not cheap things either! Things like holidays, I also went to 3 music festivals and numerous music gigs throughout the year, not to mention countless dinners out and other things to do together. I'm not blaming her for my spending, but it's fair to say if we hadn't met I wouldn't have spent so much.

However, I've now just calculated how much money I now owe and in the past year it has increased from £9,100 to £12,200! Needless to say I'm now curbing how much money I shall spend in the future and am starting to sort out budgets, SOAs, snowballs etc.

One thing that really scared me thought was I calculated how much interest I am being charged per month and it totals £126 apx! I was therefore wondering if there might be any chance that any of my creditors might be able to freeze or at least reduce the interest on my accounts. Below is who I have credit with and the interest rates I'm currently getting:

Halifax Current Account (overdraft): £1 per day (I'm always in the OD)
Halifax Credit Card: 0% Interest free until April, then 15.59%
Barclaycard Initial: 29.9% (I had transferred a balance onto this at 6.9% but then I missed a payment a few months ago and it reverted to the 29.9%)
Capital One: 34.9% (plus 1% cashback on all spending)
Argos Store Card: 29.9%

All the cards are just below their limit with the exception of Argos Card which has about £1000 on it from a £2000 limit. I also have 2 debts at collectors at 0% interest and also owe some money to the council for overpaid Housing Benefit.

If anyone has any advice as to what they have done with these companies I would be entirely grateful. I just need to reduce how much it's costing me each month to actually have credit!

Thanks

mildredalien

Sorry I don't really have any advice, just from my limited experience creditors aren't frothing at the mouth to reduce interest to make your life easier

camuk81

weebit wrote: »

Hi Everyone,

It's been a long time since I've posted in these forums, and during that time my spending has gone out of control! In the past year I found myself a lovely girlfriend and we're now living together which is saving me a lot of money (yay!). However, in the mistaken belief that I can now afford it, I've been spending a lot of money doing things together and with our friends, and not cheap things either! Things like holidays, I also went to 3 music festivals and numerous music gigs throughout the year, not to mention countless dinners out and other things to do together. I'm not blaming her for my spending, but it's fair to say if we hadn't met I wouldn't have spent so much.

However, I've now just calculated how much money I now owe and in the past year it has increased from £9,100 to £12,200! Needless to say I'm now curbing how much money I shall spend in the future and am starting to sort out budgets, SOAs, snowballs etc.

One thing that really scared me thought was I calculated how much interest I am being charged per month and it totals £126 apx! I was therefore wondering if there might be any chance that any of my creditors might be able to freeze or at least reduce the interest on my accounts. Below is who I have credit with and the interest rates I'm currently getting:

Halifax Current Account (overdraft): £1 per day (I'm always in the OD)
Halifax Credit Card: 0% Interest free until April, then 15.59%
Barclaycard Initial: 29.9% (I had transferred a balance onto this at 6.9% but then I missed a payment a few months ago and it reverted to the 29.9%)
Capital One: 34.9% (plus 1% cashback on all spending)
Argos Store Card: 29.9%

All the cards are just below their limit with the exception of Argos Card which has about £1000 on it from a £2000 limit. I also have 2 debts at collectors at 0% interest and also owe some money to the council for overpaid Housing Benefit.

Thanks

Ok let's line it up, how much are the payments per month and the limits. Have you tried the debt snowball calendar. It's great you admitted you are here now. Can you look at moving anything off the high apr cards.

weebit

Ok, here are all my debts and limits etc:

Halifax Current Account:
Limit: £2750 (although I have a self-imposed limit of £2500 otherwise they charge £2 a day!)
Current balance: £2499
Interest Rate: £1 per day (aka £31 per month / £365 a year)
Minimum Payment: £31

Barclaycard:
Limit: £1800
Current Balance: £1743
Interest Rate: 29.9%
Interest Charged (latest statement): £37.90
Minimum Payment (latest Statement): £43.74

Capital One:
Limit: £1000
Current Balance: £970
Interest Rate: 34.9 %
Interest Charged (latest statement): £24.20
Minimum Payment (latest Statement): £34.76

Argos:
Limit: £2000
Current Balance: £1018
Interest Rate: 29.9%
Interest Charged (latest statement): £17.03
Minimum Payment (latest Statement): £40

Halifax Credit Card:
Limit: £500
Current Balance: £475
Interest: 0% till April, then 15.94%
Minimum Payment (latest Statement): £5 (although this may increase when the 0% offer ends)

Other Debts at 0% with collectors:
Fenton Cooper: £394 (paying £20 per month)
Moorcroft: £3775 (paying £20 per month)
Interim Justicia: £2014.56 (paying £44.20 per month)
Overpaid Housing Benefit: £59 (paying £20 per month)

Total Debt: £12933
Interest Charged Last Month: £110.13 (this will increase in April to apx £126 by my calculations)
Minimum Payments: £258.70

camuk81

Ok so from here we know all the outgoings Minimum, let be straight from your sig you want be debt free by 2015. Is there any extra you can commit to these outgoings. Ps is the missus aware of your end goal, I.e. can you kerb a bit on entertainment to nights in and someone cooking this way you can relieve some of the pressure if you both know what you are working on

[Deleted User]

Halifax will reduce the interest for you if you ask, you must have some income free to pay them back if you have none then they will not even talk about this and refer to the debt charity of the day.
They will freeze the interest at 1% and then 0.5% if you ask again, they will even do 0% for 6 months. Be warned they do default you though and pass this to their collections company. You have to check with them what the date is so that you can pay enough to get back on track before that date, the key to this is make the agreed payment and save anything extra that you have when you get neat the default date ask for the account to be put back onto normal terms and put down your saved amount HTH

weebit

assj wrote: »

Halifax will reduce the interest for you if you ask, you must have some income free to pay them back if you have none then they will not even talk about this and refer to the debt charity of the day.
They will freeze the interest at 1% and then 0.5% if you ask again, they will even do 0% for 6 months. Be warned they do default you though and pass this to their collections company. You have to check with them what the date is so that you can pay enough to get back on track before that date, the key to this is make the agreed payment and save anything extra that you have when you get neat the default date ask for the account to be put back onto normal terms and put down your saved amount HTH

This is interesting. Does this apply to the credit card or overdraft fees on the current account? are there any links you could post as well of other people who have done this?

Thanks

[Deleted User]

Sorry just saw your msg.

I don't know if anyone else has done this but I am sure there must be someone.

I did this over the last two months as I decided although I was meeting my payments it would not last forever and hence I had to act whilst I was in control.

So I asked them and they asked for a SOA showing why I needed the measures in place. I must say I made some mistakes and had to change it a few times as sometimes I had so little cash I could not meet what they wanted and then another time I had too much. Therefore you need to ensure you plan what you are going to say ref your expenses.

You can simply call them to do this or put a letter together, if you speak to them on the phone they may try the "you have to miss a payment" trick. Ignore this and keep going.

They will do this with all of your debts, however don't expect to get another overdraft off them because once that is in arrangement it is gone. This does not apply to the credit cards and you can keep them as long as it does not get to default stage, just be sure to make notes and keep to strict dates.

During the process request a refund of any charges you may have? Also request a refund on last months interest, if you complain you will also get £50 compensation per account, per complaint.

This is all fairly easy, remember you meet the minimum payment on the new arrangement and keep the spare cash you have, because if you pay extra you will loose the arrangement as you will soon catch up on your payments. If this is the case they will then put your interest back to full rate, therefore you keep the spare cash and only pay this to the card when you intend to start full interest again and this allows you to take full advantage of the reduced or no interest period.

Sorry I hope that makes sense.