FAO Stoozers

izools

At some point in the future I'd like to start stoozing / earning money from credit - as many of you will have seen from some of my other posts.

I'm wondering about one thing though - carrying high credit card balances and making minimal payments - how it would affect my credit rating.

Some of you stoozers out there have credit limits that total more than you earn in a year and have a lot of this stowed away in savings whilst you slow stooze on 0% purchase cards or whatever else...

May I ask though, those of you that stooze, what sort of balances you carry in comparison to your limits, and what sort of balances you carry in comparison to your income?

And also what sort of monthly repayments you make? Of course on a 0% card the minimum would be the ideal amount to pay. Do any of you actually do that? Or do you pay more? How much more?

Just want to make absolutely sure I handle any lines of credit I use for stoozing in future in absolutely the best way possible to ensure I can continue ditching and switching to the next greatest 0% deals and not harm my credit worthiness.

Thanks all

[Deleted User]

making min payments on too many cards doesnt look good and will affect you at some point,as does having a high income to credit gearing,i would have thought with savings rates falling again and at best paying below 3% the fee for taking cash from a cc would have made it a useless exercise

izools

With some creative mule action it should be possible to extract cash at 0% for 25 months with a 2.9% fee.

My OH just did this with the use of a Barclaycard, Nationwide Select card, and Nationwide Bank Account.

EDIT: That could yield £152.28 after fees after two years on a Coventry Notice Fixed Rate ISA. Paltry perhaps but better than a kick in the teeth

YorkshireBoy

izools wrote: »

With some creative mule action it should be possible to extract cash at 0% for 25 months with a 2.9% fee.

My OH just did this with the use of a Barclaycard, Nationwide Select card, and Nationwide Bank Account.

EDIT: That could yield £152.28 after fees after two years on a Coventry Notice Fixed Rate ISA. Paltry perhaps but better than a kick in the teeth

I can see some possible flaws in your plan...

1. Can't see a 2 year fixed product on their website. I can see a 60 day product with a bonus and a guaranteed minimum AER until the end of this year. What happens then?

2. Re Nationwide...you've had some luck. Best to work on the assumption it might not happen again.

3. Have you factored in 25 months of 2.25% minimum payments? That's going to seriously impact on profit over the period.


I took £18K from MBNA last September, and paid a very low 2% fee for just over 12 months 0%. The only reason I did this was to fill up 3 x LTSB Vantage accounts at 4% for just over a year.

I won't make a fortune (just shy of £400 in fees alone for a return of under £600 after tax), but thought I may as well do it. Obviously this return will diminish further, since I could have probably filled them up from income anyway. As it is, my monthly savings are going into Halifax at 2.8% AER.

Have you seen this stoozing profit calculator?...

http://www.stoozing.com/calc.php

YorkshireBoy

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

I can see some possible flaws in your plan...

And another one...

4. Locking your stooz pot away in anything other than an instant access account would mean a massive loss if something went wrong (late payment, DD failure, etc) and you couldn't get at your money or they applied a significant penalty for early access.


EDIT: And yet another, although loosely linked to 2 above...

5. If Nationwide simply bounce the payment back from whence it came you've paid a 2.9% fee for nothing. That's a big hit!

izools

0% purchase card and a regular saver or two it is then.

Thanks for the input guys!

YorkshireBoy

izools wrote: »

0% purchase card and a regular saver or two it is then.

Either that or Sterling TCs from M&S and/or Tesco (1% and 1.25% fees respectively), then just 'spend' your minimum payments each month throughout the 15/16 month intro period to keep the card(s) maxed out.

M&S are stopping Sterling TCs from May though!

You're not going to get rich (long gone are the days I was making £240 a month NET on a £70-80K stooz pot!), but at least it's money in your pocket.

Eonel

I agree that the hay-days of stoozing are long gone. I don't even bother these days - instead look to maximise cashback by putting as much though credit cards as possible.

Stoozing harms your credit record in the short term. You are effectively exploiting your credit worthiness so if any need arises for real debt ( mortgage, car loan etc ) then you may have problems. If needed, you can try to explain what you are doing - some will understand, some won't care.

However in my experience, stoozing boosts your credit record in the long term. Over time I have amassed an impressive list of settled credit accounts, with material credit limits and no late payment markers.

vacheron

Hi Izools.

With regard to your question on credit rating being damaged, the credit reference agencies will put a marker against your minimum payments indicating that the card was on a promotional rate when the minimum payments were being recieved to emphasise that there was method in your motives.

I've just been accepted for the Halifax card with 0% on purchases for 17 months and an 18k limit which will do me nicely I'll slow stooze this up (hopefully to the maximum) by using it for as many of my day to day purchases as possible and keep the cash in my offset mortgage savings account @ 3.49% until the 0% offer ends.

My plan is always to pay the card off and start again, but that depends if a really good balance transfer offer is around at the time.

The most important thing to remember is to close all other unused credit cards at least a couple of months before you apply so their available balances do not show on their credit checks otherwise you may end up with a credit limit that isn't worth the effort. It also means that you can apply again as a "new customer" to them in the future to benefit from new customer promos

BugsyBrowne

vacheron wrote: »

Hi Izools.

With regard to your question on credit rating being damaged, the credit reference agencies will put a marker against your minimum payments indicating that the card was on a promotional rate when the minimum payments were being recieved to emphasise that there was method in your motives.

I've just been accepted for the Halifax card with 0% on purchases for 17 months and an 18k limit which will do me nicely I'll slow stooze this up (hopefully to the maximum) by using it for as many of my day to day purchases as possible and keep the cash in my offset mortgage savings account @ 3.49% until the 0% offer ends.

My plan is always to pay the card off and start again, but that depends if a really good balance transfer offer is around at the time.

The most important thing to remember is to close all other unused credit cards at least a couple of months before you apply so their available balances do not show on their credit checks otherwise you may end up with a credit limit that isn't worth the effort. It also means that you can apply again as a "new customer" to them in the future to benefit from new customer promos

Won't of thought izools would of actually paid the minimum she would of put an extra £1 or so on it.

izools

Thanks. And yes, I'd always pay minimum +£1, save the minimum payment marker.

BugsyBrowne wrote: »

she

Why do people keep saying that? Am I effeminate in my posts? :rotfl:

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