Newbie, motivated and on a mission - Now very ANNOYED

lynzpower

Always pay off the higher APR first. Your matched betting profits, or anytihng you sell, any underspend should always be targeted to the highest APR.

If you dont, youll end up getting further in debt the time you are coming out as higher interest is piling on.

hypno06

You've made a really good start, but if you are going to snowball these debts then paying the highest APRs and really sticking to your budgets will reap fantastic ongoing results, believe me!!

Keep on posting, not only will you get support, but you will be able to motivate others who are just starting out!

pork_pie_2

lynzpower wrote: »

I would say that your money back from bank charges should really be paid to the cahoot flexi loan.

Cahoot have a nasty habit of uppping APRS whnen ever they feel like it, and Id be inclined to pay off the mony from there and reduce the level asap.

Grrrrr i'm really annoyed now!

Cahoot have just sent me an email saying that they are increasing the APR to 19.9%!

And apparently

As a responsible lender, we have increased the amount of minimum repayment to ensure that customer balances are reduced by a reasonable level each month....

If they were responsible they wouldn't increase the APR and therefore cost me more before i've managed to pay it off.

Plus i'm now wondering if this has anything to do with me requesting a reduction in the rate yesterday, which is just plain charming.

Guess i better start looking for a loan elsewhere.

chocaholic110

I think this is just Cahoot's way! OH had a loan with them and they steadily upped his rate from 7% to nearly 15% before we got rid of them - swapped to A+L 12 month loan at 6.9%. Goodness knows how long we'd have been paying off cahoot (he had already had the loan several years, I cringe at the thought of how much interets we paid!) A+L will be paid off in September.

Helonearth

You have said that your car will be uneconomical to repair sufficiently to get it up to MOT standard. Would it really cost more than the £2,000 you are planning to spend on a newer car? This might not be an option you are looking to consider, but would you look at either doing work on your car yourself, or if not, buy a cheap car with a long MOT and use that to run around for a while?
Options like this might not suit everyone, but as a driver of a 13 year old skoda that I service myself, I would highly recommend old cars and haynes manuals!

Congratulations on your LBM and on clearing so much of your debt in such a short time!

Hel x

pork_pie_2

The car is 16 years old and the ABS is broken, hence will fail its MOT. There are also plenty of other things that could also go wrong now that its so old and i don't think its worth the risk of fixing it simply to have to spend another few hundred pounds in a couple of months.

It is highly likely the repair is a simple replacement of an ABS sensor on one of the brakes. The sensors are £150 each. You have to buy new ones because they break if you try and take them off a donor car (from a scrapyard). So i could get lucky and fix it for £150 but it'll probably cost more. BTW If it isn't a sensor fault then it'll get really expensive.

Anyway the car is now declared SORN and going on Ebay at the weekend (free motors listing this weekend). In the interim I've borrowed a corsa and am looking for a suitable car to buy.

Am probably going to buy an Astra that is between 7 and 10 years old, unless someone has a better idea. (Note i'm 6'5 and so a smaller car isn't really ideal). If it costs less that £2000 then great, if not well that how much i have to spend.