Desparately need to Balance transfer not sure of best way?

Lookinafterthepennies

Hia all,

Any advice would be very gratefully received about my predicament.. Very briefly - always been good with money (saved for things I wanted, never paid interest or used credit cards) all this changed 3-4 years ago when I lost my job due to ill-health.
For a little while I just lived off my savings thinking the surgery I was about to have would sort me out but I ended up needing further surgery which took a while to recover from. I then claimed incapacity benefit and when I went back to nursing started claiming working tax credit which i still claim. I work as a relief nurse so my hours vary and i find it hard to budget.

I am now in the situation of owing almost 3K to my MBNA card, £480 to a storecard which is 28.5% OMG :eek:, £950ish on my &MORE card and am living off my overdraft which is £1000, I also have a £2K loan which i'm paying £87per month and VERY stupidly got tied into a contract which put me on 16.5% interest instead of the 6.7% i originally thought i was getting but reluctantly agreed due to being stressed and upset at the time and needed the money asap which went into account sameday..i am only now after 12mths starting to pay off the actual loan rather than interest :mad:

Sorry to go on..just really need some advice as you can tell I am totally clueless about how to start sorting this out. I have read a bit about balance transfer on here but not sure of best way? Should I transfer all of these onto one hopefully 0% card?

Please I would be so grateful for any help

*zippy*

LATP have you had a look at the credit card board as there is quite a bit about balance transfers on there and they will have the current deals etc.

Is the M&S card quite recent, do you have the low interest LOB transfer option available to you, think its for 6 months after getting the card.

Lookinafterthepennies

Hi Zippy,

Many thanks for ur reply. The &MORE card I got just b4 xmas so may be worth ringing them to ask about it just not sure what to transfer - the lower amount but higher int card or the MBNA which has the most debt but is lower int..maybe a lower interest life-of-balance transfer to &MORE would be best option.

Yikes only got couple of weeks then to do it..i may ring them tomorrow just to find out if it is available to me and ask how much i could transfer.

Thanks again for your quick reply..

*zippy*

When my OH called them they offered to up his lmit too so you could bare that in mind. Do have a look at the CC board though as there could be better deals out there.

Have you tried putting an SOA up on here? Everyone loves to help you find further savings and list your debts with aprs etc and they will advise on the BT's. There is a sticky here with advice on how to do it.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=107280

Don't rush into anything, i'm sure you will get plenty of advice tomorrow when its busier on here. Just bump your thread up if it drops down the page in the morning so everyone see it.
zippy x

Lookinafterthepennies

Hi Zippy,

Thanks again for ur help and for adding the link i really do appreciate it..

I rang customer services at &MORE this morning and I have BT my asda storecard debt of £445 at 3.9% for the life-of-balance with no transfer fee They did discuss increasing my limit by £1000 which wud take me to £3000 but i was unsure what to do so left it at that for today. I have £636 left which i can BT under these terms until 14th june.

Not sure what to do next tho? The SOA I guess :eek: finding it a bit scarey atm..

Am i correct in thinking that I can now not spend on this card after doing the BT? I seem to remember reading on here that it is a golden rule to never spend on a card after doing a BT? I already had £918.33 of debt on it. If so, then it wud probably be best to BT some of my MBNA CC debt onto &MORE as well?

Many thanks for any advice,