My quest for a debt free life

adam68

Hi guys.

I used to have quite a bit of debt is excess of 9k. I've been working hard at work and concentrating on all my savings to pay these off.

I was unfortunate to land in such high debt. Mainly come from me getting loans out for my dad to save the house, to which he took the money and vanished and never paid me a penny back. I also went mad on a credit card trying to impress my new girlfriend.

Anyway, that's some history out the way. I am now left with 3,226 on a BarclayCard and i have been getting murdered on the interest.

I have been reading the advice across this site. Today i managed to shift 2,226 off the BarclayCard onto an interest free Halifax card via a 3% balance transfer. This leaves me with 1k on the BarclayCard and 2,226 +3% fee on the Halifax card.

Now my plan is to leave the Halifax card on minimum payments and throw every penny at the 1k debt on the BarclayCard. This should take me just a few months to clear.

Would you suggest i am playing this correct or is there any tips you can give me? I don't really know how my credit rating is. I have missed 1 payment on the BarclayCard but everything else is always paid on time. I did get declined on quite a few credit cards while trying to sort out a balance transfer.

I am unsure as what to do once the Barclaycard is paid off as i won't have enough money to clean the Halifax Card before the 12month promotional period is up.

Thanks for reading

Tixy

Hi and welcome

Sounds like you have got the right plan of action, everything you can afford to the BC charging high interest. Then once clear everything you can onto the halifax or the debt with the highest APR (thats if other debts have a higher apr than the halifax standard APR).

Once the promo deal ends (or ideally a month or so before) then you could either try to get a new 0% card at that point in time, or could see if barclaycard will offer you an existing customer 0% promo deal to move the debt back again.

Obviously make sure all payments to everything are made on time between now and then to give yourself the best chance of being accepted for another new card then. (In particular watch the first payment due on halifax if you intend to pay by direct debit - usually you still need to do a manual payment after the first statement).

As you have various debts it might be worth putting all the info into a snowball calculator (balances, APRs, amount you can afford a month) to double check the best strategy and how long t will take to get debt free - http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

adam68

Tixy wrote: »

Hi and welcome

Sounds like you have got the right plan of action, everything you can afford to the BC charging high interest. Then once clear everything you can onto the halifax.

Once the promo deal ends (or ideally a month or so before) then you could either try to get a new 0% card at that point in time, or could see if barclaycard will offer you an existing customer 0% promo deal to move the debt back again.

Obviously make sure all payments to everything are made on time between now and then to give yourself the best chance of being accepted for another new card then. (In particular watch the first payment due on halifax if you intend to pay by direct debit - usually you still need to do a manual payment after the first statement).

Hi.

Many thanks for your reply.

I have planned to do a manual payment onto the Halifax card just to be on the safe side there.

I should be able to clear the BC quite fast. I am just worried about being accepted for another credit card to BT the remains from the Halifax card once the offer period is over.

If i just stick to the plan above and wait 8-9months maybe i can re-apply and have a better chance?

Not heard of Barclays offering existing customers deals to move a debt back to them. Will consider this also.

Thanks for the advice.

Tixy

Barclaycard used to be quite good at offering promo deals to existing customers - not sure if they still are. It used to be quite common for people to report deals such as 0% promos or low life of balance transfers (Eg 6.9% until fully repaid).

People generally get more of these offers once they have cleared a card, or if they pay in full monthly, first option is to keep an eye on your online account for offers, or in 11months to actually ring up and ask what deals they have.

There is a thread here Unoffical Existing Customer Balance Transfers where people report what deals they've been offered recently (latest deals at the end of the thread!) which can be worth a check before you give them a call, to see what others have managed to get.

adam68

Hi.

Thanks very much

I will concentrate on clearing the remainder of the BC once the BT has completed then see what step to take a month or two before the promotional offer is due to end on the HF card

Should be debt free soon, yay