I am trying to stooze

lipidicman

At the danger of repeating what deemy has said.

Leia - you MUST keep the money that you owe the CC to be stoozing properly. ie the savings balance must always be equal (or greater than) the total CC debt. This money is not yours, LEAVE IT ALONE (I keep it in a separate account to help this). If you dont and fall foul of any charges they will more than wipe out any money you make through stoozing. Also READ YOUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS

dougk_2

Stoozing does not necc. damage your credit rating and in many ways it can improve it showing you are able to keep up repayments and satisfy accounts when you close them.

No credit activity is worse than some.

Interest rates rising... how do you know. BoE is the only people who know that. You can speculate but most economists think that the rate will be similar to now.

Leia_Stephens

I now have 3 ccs but 2 of them have a £0.00 balance :j .

I owe £5,662 on my 3rd one, but it is at 0% . At the rate of saving
I am planning - if I can't get another 0% deal in March '06 - I will only
need to bring my ISA balance down to £3,000 to pay off the "debt" completely .

If I do get another 0% deal in March I am hoping to still have paid off the £5,662 completely, so that I can stooze another £3,000 in my ISA during the next tax year .

I don't like having debt and stoozing at the same time: £3,072 is stoozing the rest is debt . So from April '06 I am hoping to just be stoozing X K and not have a real debt :beer: .

I hope this post makes sense, it kinda did when I was writing it .

Leia

Leia_Stephens

I have slept on it and decided that - baring emergencies - I WILL have paid off the whole - £5,662 and decreasing each month - debt by the end of March '06. This WILL involve dipping into my ISA, but I would have to do so anyway to pay back the £3,000 that is currently earning interest for me in there .

OK, it might not be proper stoozing, but I have realised that it is important to me to start stoozing in April with no debt.

BTW, the other day I successfully increased my Egg credit limit to 8k ,
I suppose it helped that I had, and still have, a £0.00 balance with them at the time .

Leia

david78

Have you been asleep for two days then?

It sounds like a reasonable plan to me. But if you get your next 0% card a bit earlier and roll your debt onto that, then you will be stoozing properly (the debt on the card and the savings in the ISA will match.). Also you don't have to worry about doing a SBT if you do it this way.

(Do you mind telling us what your Egg limit was before you changed it to £8000. I want to try to increase mine from £7000 in August if possible and want to know what sort of increase to ask for.)

MrSnow_2

I lot of credit card companies are planning on introducing balance transfer charges over the next few months (some already have them).

I am aware that some companies are also working on their credit scoring cards - therefore making it a bit more difficult for blatent card tarts to open new accounts ("they are not profitable, are costing us money - so why should we give them credit").

With these planned changes coming into effect, it will be interesting to see how worthwhile stoozing still is several months down the line.

Leia_Stephens

david78 wrote:

(Do you mind telling us what your Egg limit was before you changed it to £8000. I want to try to increase mine from £7000 in August if possible and want to know what sort of increase to ask for.)

No, I don't . My original limit was 6k, and I only asked for a 2k increase.
I might ask for another 2k increase before next March . I applied for my card in November and "applied" for the increase last month.

x Leia

Leia_Stephens

david78 wrote:

But if you get your next 0% card a bit earlier and roll your debt onto that, then you will be stoozing properly (the debt on the card and the savings in the ISA will match.). Also you don't have to worry about doing a SBT if you do it this way.

I'm not sure about this, david78 . I don't like having "debt" and stoozing, so I was thinking of bringing my debt and stoozing to zero, by paying Egg off completely by the end of March '06, and then starting from scratch with a new 0% card, just for stoozing .

However, I could have a complication soon with my stoozing. Good news my "debt" and stoozing is £5,662 but going down each month . Possible bad news for stoozing: my partner and I are hoping to buy a house and take out a mortgage - for between £100-120k - soon, well by the end of this year.

Leia

david78

Thanks for the info on credit increase. I'll ask for another £1000 I think (£7000 -> £8000. I will spend on the card a bit each month and pay it off in full to show their computer what a good customer I am.

I doubt if £5,662 of credit card "debt" (the amount of your "stooz" pot) would affect your mortgage application much, especially if your credit record shows what a good payer you have been.

Don't forget to visit the Mortgage board here when you are looking for your new home.