Help! Debt

Magentasue

pink_fairy wrote:

Hi

I wish to shuffle my credit card balances. Can anyone help?
Do any of my cards do 0% balance transfers. Barclaycard, Capital One Plat. Egg card. I have enough limits to be able to move them all around. At least this will reduce my interest amounts.

Thanks Pink fairy

Do you mean that you want to transfer some of your outstanding balances on to new cards offering 0%?

Someone here might know which would be the best to try, or you could try the Credit Card board. It would make a huge difference to you if you could do this.

The most important thing is to work out a budget, work out how much you can throw at your debts and stick to it. So many people on this board warn of the dangers of taking out new credit to pay off old - if you keep overspending, you end up owing more however many times you transfer the debt.

But the less interest you are paying, the more you can reduce your debt, so ask on the Credit Card board for recommendations - you originally said you were being refused new credit so you need to mention this. Looking at your creditors, I'd have thought there would be a couple you could try but it will depend on whether you have payment defaults and your credit rating.

If you can't transfer, you might be able to negotiate a reduction/freezing of some of the interest but you might have more success if you get one of the free debtlines to help you with this.

Good luck - and keep at it. It can only get better if youmake the right changes!

pink_fairy_7

Hi
Update on finances. Don't know if I did the right thing?

Changed loan with Northern Rock. Increased to 15K ( settlement figure £7.5K extra £7.5K to clear some of credit cards.

Cleared Egg £1.3K Cleared Capital One £4.4K. Paid extra £1.8K off Barclaycard. paid another £650 off barclaycard due to extra earnings.

Then transfered £5k back onto Capital one from BC at 6.9%

This leave me with £5K on Capital One and £2550 on BC. I think that I can get a 0% balance transfer back to my Barclaycard which will decrease interest on cards.

Northern Rock originally offered a loan at 14.9% with insurance preminums
at a cost of £345.93 per month. I challenged this and got insurance preminums knocked off. This made repayments £232.94 per month. I then asked why I couldn't have the loan at 9.9% as i have never missed any payments on anything. They re looked at the loan and offered me a loan at 9.9% at a cost of £194.23 per month. This has saved me £18,204 over 10 years.
I have cut up all my credit cards. I have seriously cut my expenses mainly on groceries. By using the boards I have reduced the weekly bill to £60 per week so far. I plan to reduce this more. It takes practise!!

I throw all my extra money at the rest of the credit card debt and want to clear it in less than 2 years. i will then start paying extra off the loans. I have set myself a target of 5 years to be totally deby free.

Thank you for all the advice and help available on this site. i feel much more positive.

Pink Fairy

mountainofdebt

Instead of cutting up your cards why not cancel them?

I've been in your situation many a time ...clearing cards and then cutting them up ...only a few months later to phone the credit card company up and ask for a new one!

I have cancelled a few of my cards that had cleared balances on them (a tad upset though as the company didn't fight to keep my custom!) so I have completely removed the temptation.

Malestrom

Pink Fairy is probably keeping those CC accounts open to see if she gets any special offers drop through the door with low interest rates. If she's cut the cards up and is serious about not using them then its a fair strategy. If you don't hear anything in 3 months or so then I would ring each company and close the accounts. When they ask why, tell them the APR is too crippling and you've got a much better rate on the XYZ card. They may offer you a lower APR or 0% offer to keep your business.

I just wanted to say 'Well Done' to Pink Fairy for making such a drastic turnaround since her first post in this thread. Keep focused and stick to your guns, you really can be out of debt in less that 5 years if you really work at it. Don't forget to have a little fun along the way (in a MoneySaving way obviously!!) though as continously hammering away at debt can be tiring and not a lot of fun for you or the kids.

Good Luck!

mountainofdebt

Can see where you are coming from Malestrom...the cards that I have cancelled I had had a zero balance on there for quite a while and had heard nothing from (so I guess I've taken your advice eh??) plus the limits were too small to be of any use was regards balance transfers

I agree Pink Fairy sounds alot more positve than she originally did...in fact I think this board does that to everyone.....

Given that the country is facing a huge debt problem don't you think that Martin deserves some official recognition????

Malestrom

Prince Martin perhaps? Or Sir Martin...now that has a nice ring to it

Iona_Penny

Well done to you Pink Fairy. I think you have done well and you sound more in control. The hard part as I found when I first started reading posts was to acknowledge the WHOLe problem-panic - and then try and do something about it. Good Luck and do keep us all up to date with things.

ps_live

Iona_Penny wrote:

Well done to you Pink Fairy. I think you have done well and you sound more in control. The hard part as I found when I first started reading posts was to acknowledge the WHOLe problem-panic - and then try and do something about it. Good Luck and do keep us all up to date with things.

I agree completely, acknowledging you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery.

Now that you have taken your debt by the scruff of the neck Pink Fairy, I suggest you start looking at your monthly bills.

Just as an example, the phone boards are full of 18866/1899 success stories. If you use your land-line a lot, using 18866 or 1899 will save you a fortune.

My average spend was about £40/month for the phone. Using 1899 and getting NTL to drop my line-rental for a year will save me over £30/month. That is a saving worth having

HTH :beer:

Pete

PS. Well done for taking control. Becoming a regular on MSE will keep you focused too :j

pink_fairy_7

Hi


I have already looked at the phone options. I have option 2 with BT which allows my teenagers to dial their friends all evening for free. I hardly ever use the phone and if I do it's always after 6pm.
I have BT broadband internet £24.99 pcm at the moment as we are heavy internet users ( I use it alot for work also)
The only thing I ever pay extra on the phone bill for is Mobile calls but my eldest is working on that!!

Thank you for the ongoing support. It's amazing what you can do with help.
I have realised so many ways to save money. I even save £19 a month on bread. My local tesco express always has good quality bread at 10p a loaf to get rid of it.The freezer is full!!

Thanks
Pink fairy

mightymo_2

Well done Pink Fairy!

Regarding the phone & broadband, I am with Homecall and pay £24.99 per month for both broadband and all telephone calls. Local and national calls, any time of the day for up to 1½ hours are included. Mobile calls aren't and neither are premium rate calls.

I don't know how other people rate Homecall, but I have been with them for five months now and have had no problems at all.

Carry on the good work!

Mo x