Dealing with a credit card bill

unabatedshagie

affordmylife wrote: »

as someone else mentioned your gf is coming home with barely £100 for working a whole month and your two small kids are in childcare.

unless this is a situation that will ease soon or her money will go up/do more hours this seems like a complete waste of time to me.

She only works part time, 16 hours or so I think. We use the money she gets in benefits to pay the childcare.

Plus she wanted to go back to work.

unabatedshagie

Would trying to save some money and transferring my balance over to a creditcard with no interest for x number of months be something to look into?

affordmylife

oh I get it so benefits pay the childcare. that's alright then.

and you actually get the wages.

xx

JimmyTheWig

unabatedshagie wrote: »

5. No way to reduce this. Have two children under 5 that need childminder.

Do you claim tax credits to pay for most of this?
If not, can you?
If not, can you get childcare vouchers from work to pay for it?

unabatedshagie

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

Do you claim tax credits to pay for most of this?
If not, can you?
If not, can you get childcare vouchers from work to pay for it?

As explained in a post a couple above this we get roughly £680 in benefits, which pays for all the childcare with some left over for other stuff for the kids.

JimmyTheWig

spitandpolish wrote: »

Don't talk cobblers.

There will still be a substantial amount of equity held in the property and no longer will the OP be paying up to 30% APR on 1/3rd of their total debts.

While I wouldn't agree with the earlier poster that it should never be done, I don't think it is something that should generally be done.
Yes, the lower interest rate of a mortgage is a nice idea, but if that is then paid over many years it can cost more in interest than a higher interest rate for a short time.
Also the fact that not paying would then mean losing their home has got to be taken into consideration.

For someone who is totally disciplined and knows where their money is going I think it is a possibility. But for all others I would say it is a no-no.

The problem we have here is that the OP doesn't know where their money is going each month.
If they used a loan (either a mortgage or a new loan) to clear the credit card, what's to stop them using the credit card to pay for things again?
The SOA shows that they have enough money coming in each month to clear this bill quite quickly. That has got to be the answer.

JimmyTheWig

unabatedshagie wrote: »

As explained in a post a couple above this we get roughly £680 in benefits, which pays for all the childcare with some left over for other stuff for the kids.

I understand that the money is there to pay for it. My question is "if you weren't paying for childcare, would your benefits go down?".

unabatedshagie

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

I understand that the money is there to pay for it. My question is "if you weren't paying for childcare, would your benefits go down?".

That I don't know, my girlfriend deals with all the benefits. From what I understand it would go down but I'm not sure by how much.

JimmyTheWig

unabatedshagie wrote: »

That I don't know, my girlfriend deals with all the benefits. From what I understand it would go down but I'm not sure by how much.

It's worth checking. Some people are able to claim as much as 70p in the £1 that they spend on childcare.
Would be annoying if there was money out there with your name on it that you're not getting - as there is a limit to how far you can back-date any change.