Credit card debt advice

lvp

Hi ya just wondering if anyone can give me bit f advice. I have £8000 credit card debt, £6k on one card £2k on other on which am just about making minimm repayments -not missed payments but money tight. Bit worried as only paying minimum and don't like having debt hanging over me. I have had a hard lookd at my budget and am making an effort to reduce outgoings however I don't feel can afford to pay any more than I am already.
Looked into applying for new card to do balance transfer but only offered £850 balance, also looked into shuffle but only offered 9 months 0% for £1750 on card number 2. This would still leave large amount on card one and prob mean would have higher total minimum payments after the 9 months. I then though about personnal loan as figured if can afford to pay similar to minimum payments over period of 5 or so years at least debt would be cleared. Problem is have been turned down by both Tesco and Santander.
Not really sure what my next step is. Have arranged to go to my own bank re loan however what are the chances of them approving loan if others have turned me down? Also they have higher APR so would mean higher monthly payments or longer term.

I would value any advice you have as to what to do to get out of this mess.

Tixy

Hi and welcome

If you've already applied for a few credit products recently and have been turned down for 2 loans then its probably fairly unlikely you will be accepted by your bank either.
If you can only afford minimum payments on the existing debts you have any potential lender will think you cannot afford to service another £8k of debt on top.Whilst you know you intend to consolidate a lender cannot be sure you will, or that you won't run up debt on the cards again, and so will look at the worst case that you end up in £16k of debt and whether you can afford repayments on that.

Perhaps it would be worth posting your budget on here for others to see if they can spot other savings you could make / things you could get cheaper etc so you can free up more towards the debts each month - might be worth completing the statement of affairs calculator and posting the results up here. http://makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Alternatively are there any options to increase your income so you can pay more towards the debts? overtime at work? a second job at the weekend? things you could sell to raise some cash?