Please help me to organise my debt repayments!!

clarelarge

Hello everyone, good luck with paying off your cards! I'm quite new to this forum so please be kind!

Sorry this is a really long post too!

I have just gone to the snowball debt order repayment calculator which is brilliant and super helpful. I did think that maybe the order I was paying my credit cards off in was important, but, I'm just happy to be paying them off finally!

Here is my current debt:

HSBC CC : £5000 - @ 25% - limit is £5750
Nat West CC : £ 750 - @ 25% - limit is £2020
RBS CC : £1650 - @ 25% - limit is £3650

RBS Loan £10,000 *just under) @ about 8-9% (was £20k)

I have moved in with my parents to help sort this out and they are amazing letting me do this while I get sorted :-) So my outgoings are a LOT less than they were, which is great.:j

I am going to call up all my credit card companies tomorrow and ask for a more competitive deal on my interest rates AND to see if they can offer me any zero % balance transfer offers, or lower rate ones. Fingers crossed!!

Do the CC companies do a credit check before doing a balance transfer even if you have already got a CC with them and you are making the payments OK?

As I am self employed and don't have a huge provable income (under £20k) - my credit is "fair" last time I checked due to the amount of credit and that it was nearly maxed out

- this has gone down a lot since then, but I guess it's still a fairly high debt : credit ratio?? Anyone able to comment on this?? When do they start liking you again?!! I'd love to get a new 0% offer but just think I will get turned down due to my income and being self employed?? (and have done in the past but that was when my balances were a LOT higher)

RBS increased my CC limit without asking me or me requesting it even though they didn't let me add any cc debt to the loan and just turned me down for a remortgage which was typical, lol!

I didn't realise that the interest rates I am paying were so high until I came on here!!

So right now, I repay this:

£200/mo to the biggest card, the HSBC,
£320/mo to the RBS bank loan (fixed, but I can overpay it)
£100/mo to Natwest although I just got paid from a big job and paid £800 off it, yay! :j
£100/mo to RBS CC

Now that I realise that I should tackle the biggest debt first, thanks to the snowball calculator, I have some questions:

1. If I can get my CC balances onto a zero % transfer and / or a transfer % that is LESS than 8% that I am paying on the bank loan, should I overpay my bank loan BEFORE my credit card debts, IF I can get the CC debts onto a lesser interest rate??

(just concerned because the CC lower interest rate period will expire but the loan is fixed?)

I have an amazing job coming up where I will be abroad and getting paid just over £2,000/mo for 3 months starting in December, with minimal expenses. So I want to put nearly all of this towards paying down my debts, so where to start?!

I will post an update to this tomorrow after I have spoken to my credit card companies, as I think it will depend greatly on what they can do for me!

2. I'd also really like to know, if I want to switch balances ie do the credit card shuffle, lol - what is the best way to do it? I'm confused!!

I am thinking it is unlikely that I will be able to switch money between Nat West and RBS as they are the same company?!

But could I for example, do this (assuming they have deals worth doing and the transfer fee is not too much... oh AND, they actually let me do it?!) :

Current debt:

HSBC CC : £5000 - @ 25% - limit is £5750
Nat West CC : £ 750 - @ 25% - limit is £2020
RBS CC : £1650 - @ 25% - limit is £3650

Move £2000 or just under, from my HSBC card to my RBS card

New Balance of HSBC : £3000
New Balance of RBS : £3650

I would then have £2750 credit left on my HSBC card

Move my £750 Nat west balance onto my HSBC card

I would then have £2000 ish credit left on my HSBC card - balance would now be £3750 ish
and I now have £2020 credit on my Nat West card

Move £2000 from my HSBC card to my Nat West card (?!)

Can I make sure that I move the ORIGINAL debt and not the balance I just transferred from Nat west?!! Do they even let you do reciprocal transfers like this??

Do you have to wait between doing it and if so, how long??

Assuming I can do that (!) my HSBC card balance would then be £3750 - £2000 = £1750

So I would end up with this if this is even possible to do?!

HSBC CC : £1750
RBS CC : £3650 or just under!
Natwest CC : £2000

Um... I think.... ?! Really confused just thinking about it!

and of course each one + the balance transfer fees, ??

Let me add up the money I will have to make repayments in the next few months, minus the £320 for the bank loan each month:

October : Approx £400
November : Approx £400
December : £400 + £2000 from that job = £2400
January : £1400 (expecting a tax bill of around £1k)
February : £2400

I just wanted to add it up to where that job finishes to see where I might be at :

Total to repay over that time = £7000.

So in theory if nothing unexpected comes up, I *should* be able to clear or nearly clear, my credit cards in 5 months -

OR pay most of my bank loan back and have my credit card debt on a lower interest, but short term lower interest, arrangement...?

I will post again tomorrow once I have spoke to my credit card companies, but in the meantime, I would REALLY appreciate any advice as to what to pay first??

Maybe after I have seen what deals I can or cannot get would be best?? As if none, then I guess I just start with the big one and work down...

What is the best thing to say to the credit card companies? I saw the post here about shuffling and saved the URL, so will read that before I do it and psych myself up for it!!

Should I ask to speak to a manager or is anyone OK?

Can anyone think of a better way to do the balance transfer shuffle if I CAN get any good deals?!

Any help would be hugely appreciated, thanks so much! Look forward to being a more active part of this forum!

Cheers, Clare :-) :beer:

bouncydog1

Clare

Copy your post over to the debt free board where they deal with these types of queries

zerog

OK. First of all - no more spending until you've made some progress!

What you have suggested with the transfers sounds all right, I'd probably try RBS first and move as much of the £5000 to it as possible. Then either NW to HSBC or HSBC to NW, and if you still have any limits left, move the original £1650 RBS to HSBC

The balance transfer fees are usually 3% ish, which is insignificant if you can get a 0% deal... and even if they don't offer you 0% but something like 12%, that's still better than 25%

Usually the highest interest rate debt is paid off first, so when you BT it will pay off the 25% before any 0%, make sure you remember how much original debt is left, to avoid moving any which is at 0%!

If you can't get any BT deals then, since all the cards are at the same rate, it's purely psychological whether you want to tackle the biggest one first, or fully clear the smallest one first. In that case, you could try first for a new 0% BT card, or another loan for 6 months.

CLAPTON

you have 20,000 worth of debt and an income of about the same

most potential lenders will see you as high risk because your debt to income ratio is very high and of course you are self employed.

it is unlikely (but not impossible) that anyone will offer you any 0% deals but you won't know until you ask.

However, be careful how you ask: you will only get good offers if they see you as some-one who can go elsewhere and not some-one struggling with debt.

as of this minute there is no point in moving any debt as all your CCs are on the same APR




I assume the following is a mistake: you pay off the debt with the highest APR first; the size of the debt is irrelevant.

Now that I realise that I should tackle the biggest debt first, thanks to the snowball calculator, I have some questions:

aimzrabbit

Claire

you would be better doing the soft applications for barclaycard and thenationwide cards both on the webistes 0%

to do the nationwide 1 you apply for the 0% card it gives you a qoute half wak through the application

if it comes up with a 19.9% qouted apr and a low credit limit of £500 then you are most likely to be declined DO NOT CLICK APPLY CLICK CANCEL

if you get 9.9% apr or 15.9% apr qoute and a limit 0f 1500 -5000 you will be probably accepted but its not 100% gauranteed

if this comes back as a big fat 0 then you are unlikely going to get a 0% card this would be your benchmark as to making your plan to repay your ccs off

rabbit

clarelarge

Hey :-)

Thanks SO MUCH for the replies everyone!

Bouncydog - sorry, I did look for a debt free place on the forum and didn't see it, my bad.

Zerog - yeah, thing is I need to work out what the balance transfer fees would be, since I will be able to pay a LOT off these in just a few months all being well, might not be worth paying??

Especially if I can't get an interest free period?!

Clapton, thanks for the reply, hmm, yeah ok, I got confused with mixing the bank loan and the credit cards on the snowball calculator...

I will see what my credit card companies can do for me now, calling them :-)

Rabbit - Hmm, thank you for that, I will check it out! :-) OK, going to call them now, wish me luck I will post the results! :-)

zerog

If the BT fee is 3%, then unless you can pay it off in two months, 25% APR will definitely cost you more. The thing is, if you do get a 0% deal, it will last for maybe 6-12 months so put the money in a savings account and earn some of the BT fee back. As long as you can control your spending

clarelarge

Right, so Nat West and RBS were HOPELESS!!! Totally inflexible, unhelpful, wouldn't do anything. Reminded my why I hate banks and calling them. Ditto that with the tax office, haha!

However, HSBC has been AMAZING!! I have good standing with them, never go overdrawn, and they have made my whole balance at 4.9% rather than 24.9% :-) And it was actually £4650 not £5000 which is good too.

I didn't know you could do that, so it was like a balance transfer to the same card! If I spend any EXTRA money now on that card it will still be at 24.9% but that balance stays at 4.9% :-)

STOKED!! So I have moved the Natwest balance onto it too, so my total balance there is about £5450 at 4.9% for 6 months!

That's a HUGE saving! I felt a bit guilty last night working out all my money stuff and not working, but that call alone has saved me HUNDREDS of pounds! :-) SO happy!

After the 6 months it reverts back to the old rate of 24.9% but I will have paid it off by then, all being well.

LOL, of course I can control my spending! Even getting into this debt, I don't begrudge it, I did some amazing things, :-) and still do. I like this quote:

"As a child, I used to have a vivid imagination. As an adult, I have a vivid reality." (and that does NOT mean spending money necessarily!)

Being self employed, it's hard knowing when the good jobs will come that's all. I go from earning £5000 a month to sometimes only £1000, hence not being too fussed about racking it up in the first place as I could've paid it off in a few months - thinking back, I don't know why I didn't really - I guess because there were always more jobs coming -

...it's only because I SERIOUSLY changed careers and what I am doing now is taking AGES to build up (but will be SO worth it!) - that I am in this situation, lol!

So anyway, that's my deal, really happy, now I am going to pay more off the more expensive RBS CC until it is £0 - whilst still paying more than the minimum on HSBC until that is £0, hopefully in 6 months I will be in a MUCH better position :-)

I did try to get a bank loan from HSBC as they said it might be at 6.2% - so I could've put my 8.9% £10k loan from RBS and my £1650 CC from RBS at 25% on, they provisionally accepted me - meaning it would have needed to be reviewed further - BUT it came back at 9.9%, which was a shame - not worth it!

However, I am STOKED about this too, only because 6 months ago I wouldn't have been provisionally accepted at all, so it shows my credit is getting better :-) Then I asked if I could get a loan just for the £1650 left on my RBS card, from HSBC but they have a £7k minimum, so also not worth it!

Has anyone used a credit union? I'd never heard of them until yesterday?? Anyone have any thoughts to contribute?? I'd love to hear them, will search more on these forums too.

Thanks to everyone who replied to my post!

P.S. LOL I went to Barclaycard and put in my details, I was offered 29.9% with NO free balance transfer offer, erm, yeah, cheers for that Barclaycard!! with a 90% chance of acceptance, hahaha! yeah... I'll leave that one I think!!

aimzrabbit

should of tried the nationwide 1 it searches experian with a soft search

rabbit , it wont damage your rating on the soft searches

Experian_company_representative

That's right. You see all search footprints on your credit report but footprints created by quotations and ID checks don't affect credit scoring. You can read more about this here.

James Jones