Help Needed!!! credit cards / loan consolidation quandry???

aw23

Hi there, i was wondering if anybody could avise me please? I've currently got some debts that i am paying off but its leaving me really really skint each month. basically i'm looking to pay less each month even if it takes me a wee bit longer to pay it all off.

heres what i've currently got;

a (shockingly poor) loan with 8 payments left @ 226.19 ( total 1809.52).

a credit card with 1,851.82 on it @ 0% until november
and 950.21 @16.75%.

so the total right now is a minimum of 4657.35 (i know paying off the loan early will add a bit!)

just now i make the loan payments but only pay the minimum on the credit card each month which is about £40 and i'm still struggling. ideally i would like to be paying 100 to 150 as it would free up some money i need for other things.

So basically I was wondering if anybody thinks it would be better to move any of it onto a new cred card at a zero rate.

any help would be really appriciated, thanks

rachelonna

you can try to open a virgin credit card which will allow you to move money to your current account to repay your loan early. I don't know if you will get a credit limit that's big enough though. What's your credit/income like?

aw23

income isnt great, about £1150 a month, i own my own home and havent missed any payments or anything. i have had a few loand cred cards in the past. i dont know how good my credit is but one card gave me 3400 and i just closed another that was 1500.

rachelonna

would be tempted to just try the virgin card then - worse case you'd get a credit limit high enough to move the 950 loan to a balance transfer deal, hence paying just 4% upfront on the fee, then save some interest payment - that should help you focus on saving up for the loan.

If you get more than £1000 on that virgin card, you can do both - push some money across to your current account + balance transfer, but have a payment plan ready

just make sure you have a plan on how you're going to save up to pay the others before they become high interest, or you will have to get another card.

aw23

thanks for the advice. just a question on the credit card, if i do a partial balance transfer which amount will they deduct? if i moved a 1000 from it for example would they deduct that from the intrest free amount on the card or the amount which is getting charged intrest?

YorkshireBoy

If the primary objective is to reduce your monthly payments, shifting the £900 credit card debt won't help much, since the monthly minimum payment will likely be the same...and could actually increase if you have a card with 1% + interest minimums now and the next card requires 2.5-3% minimums.

Which cards do you have now, and what are their limits?

rachelonna

Assume you're referring to the order of payments - that is, if you shift £1000 + £40 transfer fee, then repay £20, does the money go towards the £40 or £1000? It would go towards the £40 -

I think YorkshireBoy has a point with regards to minimum payment - could you list out your debt/cards and then we'll try and work it out for you?

aw23

Hi i only have 1 credit card its an MBNA card with the following on it;

950.21 @ 16.75%
1851.82 @ 0.00% (rate expires November 2012)

the balance was 3400 but i recently reduced it to 3000 and cut up the card (i still have it i just cant use it anymore).