Help me... I guess it's time to just reach out and touch...

PanickingHARD

Sugar_Junkie wrote: »

Sounds like payment protection. Give them a ring. If it is I'd cancel it. If you want cover for your cards you'll be probably be able to get a much better deal elsewhere that'll cover all of them.

Thanks SJ...

I think it's probably sensible to leave it for the moment though... I have only been in my new job for 5 weeks and have NO security until 6 months really... I'd love to not worry about it, but I'm too panicked (see username... ) to risk it after being made redundant last time...

Anyone understand the interest rate thing?

Sandy.l_2

PanickingHARD wrote: »

Thanks SJ...

CASH INTEREST AT 2.075% PER MONTH
MERCHANDISE INTEREST AT 1.313% PER MONTH

Anyone understand the interest rate thing?

I think this means you are paying 24.9% per annum for cash withdrawals/advances & 15.75% for any purchases. If I'm right with these figures, you should be able to get a better deal elsewhere.

Sandy

PanickingHARD

Sandy.l wrote: »

I think this means you are paying 24.9% per annum for cash withdrawals/advances & 15.75% for any purchases. If I'm right with these figures, you should be able to get a better deal elsewhere.

Sandy

Thanks Sandy... I'm going to start looking for better tomorrow... Any advice from anyone would be great... Need to be fairly easy to get... If anyone else with hammered credit cards has managed to get a decent free bal transfer or low LoB card recently I'd gratefully accept the help...

:T in advance...

momisa

I sincerely hope you're feeling proud!!! :T

I thought I'd mention a few things to help, you may already know them though so apologies in advance.

On credit card statements only the monthly interest is listed so in order to get a jist of the APR take the figure and multiply by 12 to give you the APR (Annual Percentage Rate).

Loans usually state the APR and when buying a car you need to specifically ask what the APR is for the figures the car place has quoted. Not that you're planning on changing your car :rolleyes:

As for a good CC with good LoB transfer I have Barclaycard and find them to be excellant. Once you find a card make sure you transfer the balance and never, EVER spend on it!!

Don't go applying for numerous CCs though. Multiple records in your credit file can affect your rating. Have you recently checked your credit files to make sure it is up to date and correct? If not, it costs £2 for each report and there are three in total - Experian, Call Credit and Equifax. I make a point of checking this once every year.

:beer:

tealady

If you are thinking of stopping smoking try a chemist as they often have promotions where you can buy weeks worth of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) for 1 weeks prescription charge. Last time I gave up (18mths ago) I got 8 weeks worth for about £7, much cheaper than ciggies. Being an ex smoker I know you can only quit when you want to, not when others tell you to.

Karmacat

Hi PH
I've just read through your thread - welcome to mse. I can stil hear you panicking, but take one step at a time - get your application (singular, not plural!) for a o% or low LoB credit card in, get the transfers done, don't spend on it otherwise you lose the benefit of the low rates. How is it going with using the cooler? Remember you have to use it to get the benefit!

The other thing is the spending diary - the little bits that we spend really add up, and until you see them in black and white, you really don't know - like you didn't know how big your debts were. You've done it on the big scale, now its time to do it on a small scale.

Good luck, keep posting. I just want to confirm what people have said about this being addictive - I work from home, and need to have the computer on all day. This site is always on in the background, on one board or another.
KC

Sandy.l_2

Tosh1 wrote: »

To help with the smoking situation, get Alan Carr's Easyway and start reading it. The author used to smoke 80 cigs-per-day and it was literally killing him.

(Okay, okay, he's been on the news having died of lung cancer; but he reckons stopping smoking when he did added 20 good-quality years onto his life.)

It's a pleasant enough book - no preaching - and the best thing is that you can smoke while you're reading it!

I would just like to add that I gave up smoking 5 years ago using Allen Carr's Easyway method and I would recommend it to anyone. I did the online course rather than reading the book, it took about 4 hours and was incredibly cheap.

I just made the decision that I was going to give up smoking that day, and I logged on and started it. By the end of the day I was a non-smoker, I haven't had one since, I haven't any desire to have one either. It's like I never smoked. I gave up 2 weeks before moving too which is one of the most stressful times of your life but I still didn't have one. Although that was the only time I've ever had a craving but to be fair we were sat in a smoky pub after a very, very long day! Didnt succumb to it though!!:p

Have courage and confidence in this because it really does work:D

Sandy

PanickingHARD

Hi Guys… Just an update… and as usual, a load of thank yous…

Thank you, thank you, thank you…

OK… I got a little lost in it all last night, and although I got loads done, I did end up losing focus a little and not getting what I wanted to sorted properly… however… Last night I did the following…

1) Sorted out my passwords and access etc for ALL my banking and finance online… I have always dreaded seeing my balance, and although it’s still not a pleasant experience, it is GOING TO BE…

2) Made all the payments I had to make for this month now… *sigh*

3) Opened a savings account into which I am going to pay the following only for now… Any additional earnings I can make from anywhere (more on this later) and the monthly proceeds of my loose change tin… every time the balance hits £101 pounds, I will transfer £100 of it to one of my debts.

4) Panicked a little more as I now have £105 to last me until end of June, and almost no food in the house…

5) Found a spending diary excel sheet that I acquired from somewhere about 9 months ago (my last half-ars*d attempt to sort this) and populated it completely… It took an age (like 4 hours) and is very complicated looking, but now I’ve gotten to grips with it and it is fantastic… It gives me %age figures on everything automatically… ie 1.65% of my total month spending last month was on going to the cinema!!! It automatically expresses the data you input in MANY ways and each different way provided renewed perspective on the disgraceful state of my finances for me… My spending was, has been, totally out-of-control… Karmacat, you were SPOT-ON… I have been just wasting SOO much cash… This has driven me to redouble my efforts… again… … There are other functions the spreadsheet will do that I either can’t or don’t need to use… If anyone wants it, please PM me your email and I’ll send it to you immediately… I have no idea what standard people here set for these kind of things, but I’m a closet excel junkie, and I couldn’t have written this in a month of Sundays! I’ll post a separate thread offering it for anyone not following this… or those bored by my rambling who have already started to skip read me!

6) Decided on a new resolution to my sig… Res 6. From now, I pay with cash… NO MORE debit card purchases unless I am in a ‘life or death’ situation… ie about to run out of petrol… and have NO other option… It is FAR TOO easy to ‘forget’ what I’ve used it for or pretend it doesn’t exist…

7) Made myself a pasta salad for today and put it in the fridge... :money:

8) Went to bed, SHATTERED, and started to read the Alan Carr book I blagged from a friend for free…

9) Fell asleep about 1 min later…


Ok… jokes aside (although it does feel like I have a need to tell you guys everything I do now!), I have a few things to ask… favours… as usual…

I know I’ve mentioned both of these things before, and had some people respond, but I am now pretty certain that I am going to get £12k from the equity in my old house, hopefully some time next week… So I need to work out what I am going to do with this…

There is a massive temptation for me already to just think ‘that will solve all my problems’… I KNOW that it won’t, but I’ve spent so long with my head in the sand that it’s the default setting on my brain…

I need to make this money work for me… in my situation, what would you lot do with it? I am looking for advice, because I need to stay motivated… any ideas, thoughts, stories about what you did in a similar situation, etc, etc… would really help me make a decision on how to handle this…

The other thing, still relating to CC’s…

Is it going to effect my ability to get a card, if I apply and fail? Ie, if, as momisa suggested, I apply to Barclaycard, and they turn me down, will it make things worse for me in trying to get a different one?

Just for prudence-sake, and to remind you all of my 'SoA Lite'... My CC situation is...

I currently have £16,200 (ish) of debt on my 3 cards… £8,700, £6,000 and £1,500.

Considering all the following, what is the consensus on whether I will get a card company to give me a card… Which, fyi, I will cut up on receipt… And how much?

1) I have only just changed employer and have only been working here 6/7 weeks
2) My credit rating will not be good… I have a history of defaulting on cc payments
3) I have never ONCE defaulted on a loan, rent or mortgage payment in 10 years
4) I clear £2,089 p.m. plus annual bonuses

I suspect that an LoB deal will suit me more, as I’m highly unlikely to be able to pay off these CC debts in 12 months (assuming I can find one with that length of time at 0%), regardless of how I do it, but I am prepared to t/f as often as is necessary to maintain 0%, if it’s possible, or ‘advisable'…

My other option is to use the £12k to pay off only CC debts, then balance transfer the remaining back onto say, my Mastercard... Assuming it happens, they'll do it, and that it's 0%...

Once again… I am at your mercy… Thank you all in advance… again… And sorry to bore you all...

xxxx

InTheRed

Hi PH!
This is the order of what I would do... subject to the APR's!

Mates 120
Citi card 1500 Just to see a result of less cards to pay!
virgin/mbna 6000 not sure if you said what the APR was?
mastercard 5380 APR 15.75%
13000
Loan 6000 What APR is it? And can you make overpayments?

Good luck hope you get the £13k, what a kick start that would be!!:T

dhassen

just read through all of this... phew

its great to see someone in a similar(ish) situation to me sorting things out and feeling better.

Good luck mate! we all need it