NatWest Platinum Credit Card 0% balance transfers 23 months(3.5% fee, min£5)any good?

YorkshireBoy

diz79 wrote: »

...so basically, I keep my salary in my bank account and buy everything with the credit card for the months payments are free and/or when overdraft is transferred?

Basically yes, however payments are not "free"...you need to make the contractual minimum payment each month.

For example, if it's 1% then you'd leave the other 99% in the current account, thus reducing the debit interest being incurred. In practice though, most have a minimum £5 so this is what you'll pay until your balance exceeds £500.

But...don't get carried away! You only spend on the credit card what you would have spent anyway on your debit card. You can hurry things along by using your card to buy things your family and very close friends were going to buy with cash...just put their purchase(s) on your card and pay the cash they give you into your current account.

PollyOnAMission

As others have said, this is what I did:

Kept my salary going into my current account with overdraft. Used this account for only the bare minimum of things (e.g. some direct debit payments, taking out cash when needed) that could not be paid for on a credit card.

Did all my other spending on a 0% on purchases credit card (supermarket shopping etc). It's best to get the longest rate you can, to give you more time to pay off your overdraft. Make sure you also start budgeting and cutting back! Make the minimum payments to the 0% card every month (direct debit) but don't pay off the full balance.

Your overdraft should then gradually reduce and eventually you'll be back to £0 just before payday, with a balance of £x on the 0% card which you now need to start paying off. Stop spending on this card now, and make sure you start living within your means (i.e. not spending more than your pay cheque each month, even after making payments to this card). Depending on the balance and the length of the 0% period you might be able to pay it off in (Balance dividied by months left) installments and clear it, or if not you may need to transfer the balance to a 0% on balance transfers card. Again, get the longest rate possible, don't spend on the card and make the necessary payments each month so the balance will be £0 before the 0% rate ends. Don't forget to factor in the balance transfer fee.

Essentially you'll end up with a situation where you have just your salary amount in your current account on payday. Over the course of the month you'll pay for all your shopping, bills etc (including the new 0% cc balance) and still end up above £0 at the end of the month. Ideally you would trasfer this money into a savings account or similar To milk the system even more, you could actually get a cashback CC to do your monthly spending (still making sure you spend less than your pay cheque), pay it off from your current account and earn some extra money. But this would depend on how disciplined you can be, and how many other cards etc you have (thinking about credit rating)/ The absolute key to all of it is to budget and live within your means, the important point to remember being that doing this has to also include payments to clear your debt, rather than staying static or have it get worse.

If you have more than one overdraft the principles would be the same, but you'd have to be very on the ball when it comes to building up your 0% balances, balance transferring etc. Again, it all comes back to budgeting.

Good luck!

sfax

Just to clarify one thing on this: You don't necessarily need a 0% purchases card. Any CC with a £0 balance will do as you can pay off the balance in full each month by transferring the full amount to a BT CC.

E.g. get the Tesco 23 month BT card which allows you to BT at any time (there is no 3 month restriction on when you can balance transfer and get 0%). Pay for everything possible on your normal CC (starting with a £0 balance) and transfer the full statement balance each month to the Tesco CC. Your overdraft will get paid off because you aren't paying for anything in cash - you can even switch bills etc if you need to get it cleared quickly. It could be cheaper to temporarily forgo the DD discount on bills and pay a transaction fee on your CC than service the high interest rate on your overdraft. You'd need to work it out.

You could also ask a friend or a family member who pays a CC in full each month if they would let you pay their balance for a month or two in return for cash (or a bank transfer). It makes no different to them as it gets paid anyway and they would be helping you out.

diz79

Thank you all very much for your help on this sorry not to reply sooner but, was a bit crazy with christams etc!

I will try my best to carry this out.

regards

diz79

The only other question is, is it difficult to get a credit card these days? I havent had one since I paid off my last one and I am also self-employed will this affect me getting one? I guess I will try and see what happens.

Muchos gracias