How do I escape high interest charges?

Giving_Up

Hi all,
I'm a new kid to the site, I find myself in desperate need of some skilled advice to tell me if there is a way out...

The facts are, I have 4 credit cards, amongst other managable debt. The killer credit card I have is Barclaycard Gold, had it for 15 years. The balance is £5,900 with an APR of 26%, its killing me.
Its taken me 3 years to clear £2100 at a monthly payment of £150 per month.
I've asked them in excess of 6-10 times if they could transfer the debt to a better rate but they have refused. The interest is high due to cash withdrawalls made years ago (fool I know). I've never missed payments on anything, have a good credit history. But the balance is too big too transfer and I can't secure any more credit. Any advice appreciated..:(

princess*daisy

Hello,

Welcome to DFW! :T

I know some people will disagree, but what about a loan to pay off your CCs? THEN CUT THE CCs UP! If your loan would be quite large and you have a good credit rating, you should be able to get a decent APR on a loan.

In the meantime, I would suggest doing your SOA and posting it in here so that people can get a true picture of your circumstances and offer some more advice. Use the SOA calc here - http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

glawster_2

£127.83 a month or £1534 a year would kill me too. If you are paying £150 a month you are mostly just repaying interest. That's over £3000 interest in 2 years, you may have well as bought them a decent used car. That's not to be negative but to highlight why you need to act.

OK maybe you can't balance transfer the whole amount to one card, but you don't need to. If you can get 2 cards with £3500 limits and 0% balance transfers then transfer at 0% to them. The problem with a loan is you need good credit to get the leading rates and if you have that you can just as easily switch to a zero % deal for 15-22 months (Halifax, Natwest, Bos, RBOS, Virgin, 1st Direct, Creation, Santander, Lloyds); meaning it's cheaper to repay.

If your credit rating doesn't allow this get the best card you can (preferably with some sort of 0% deal on it but if not that's OK too). Transfer as much as you can from your BC onto the other card then transfer it back to BC as soon as the BT is cleared. Repeat until you are no longer have even a penny at 26% interest. This will cost around 5-6% in one off transfer fees but will reduce rate you are paying to a permanent 6.9% (BC offers this to all customers doing balance transfers onto their cards). Capital One do a Balance Transfer at 0% until October which you can get with 'average' credit if necessary.

You could even do this if you have another credit card (though you'd pay interest on the BT for a short-time long run you'd be better off)