balance transfer question?

Lydia42

Hi
I'm new on here, so apologies if this has already been posted or if there is a thread somewhere already.

We have a large amount of debt (26k) - mostly on credit cards and a little on overdraft. We have been moving it about to differing 0% cards. We have 2 barclaycards which we are able to get 6.9% for life of balance and could get the whole debt onto them both. So my question is do we continue moving the debt about and paying transfer fees every 6 months (have been turned down for new cards, so 6 months at 0% seems to be all we can get with existing cards at the moment), or do we move everything to Barclaycard and pay the transfer fee and leave it there once and for all at 6.9%? To be honest it's a bit of a monster debt to keep track of and juggle so i'm inclined to go for the 6.9%......what do you guys think?

Thanks for listening.....:o

Nessa56

Hiya

I didn't want to read and run, however I am no expert and this is not advice as such, just I think if it were me I would probably go for the life of balance rate if only to give myself a bit of breathing space, a bit of peace of mind even.

Once you know exactly where you are with this, then you could work at overpaying the card as as much as possible and maybe clear it even quicker.

Those are my thoughts anyway for what they are worth, but I am sure much, much cleverer people will be here soon to help you.

Good luck whatever you choose to do

v
x

fimack3

At 26k you're paying over 700 quid in balance transfer fees, which adds up if you're having to move cards frequently.

But at 6.1% for the life, if you paid the balance off over 8 years (around 342pcm) you'd pay a total of 6,744 in interest (which? have an online calculator), plus the initial transfer fee (so lets say 7500 total).

Compare this to 8 years of balance transfer fees, which would reduce as your balance reduces (during which time you might also be able to get longer 0% periods).

also consider peace of mind as Nessa says - if the numbers are not dissimilar it might be nice to not have to worry about being approved for deals, which sounds like it's becoming an issue.

good luck

neverbefore2011

Lydia42 wrote: »

We have a large amount of debt (26k) - mostly on credit cards and a little on overdraft. We have 2 barclaycards which we are able to get 6.9% for life of balance and could get the whole debt onto them both

It sounds like a bargain to me - I thought life of balance deals were history!

But don't get trapped by the 'minimum payment' option, unless you expect to find another 'loophole' at some future time

neverbefore2011

neverbefore2011 wrote: »

It sounds like a bargain to me - I thought life of balance deals were history!

But don't get trapped by the 'minimum payment' option, unless you expect to find another 'loophole' at some future time

and, of course, don't ever dream of using your barclaycards again, until after the life of balance deals have been paid off