Help / advice please on which cards to reduce / pay off first

mum2one

Trigger1971 wrote: »

Ok, so I've made a couple of calls and here's what I've been offered.

Halifax have said I can move balances across with a 3% fee and they'll then give me 0% on them for 9 months. No increase in my limit which is currently at £6150.

Barclays have offered me 0% with a 1.9% fee until the 1st of September or 6.9% for life with a 2.9% fee. Again no increase in the limit which is currently £14900

If I were to be able to get a total of £3500 cash (I have some in an ISA that I could use) and pay off my Halifax using £1000 (my original figures hadn't taken into account my latest payment) that would leave me with their offer (0% for 9 months) available with £6150 of credit. I could then pay the other £2500 off my Barclaycard and shift what's left on it (aprox £6150) over to the Halifax 0%, concentrate on paying that off in the 9 months and shift all other ballances over to the Barclaycard at the 6.9% fee. I'm guessing to pay off the Halifax card in 9 months I'd have to pay off £683 a month (£683 x 9 being £6147) meaning I then put the other £952 from the extra money I'm committing to this (£500 a month) and the money from my transferred payments into paying off the 6.9% Barclaycard?

Have I got all that right (I feel I'm missing something!!)? Certainly seems to be way way cheaper than what I'm doing at the moment or than by not doing the transfer.

Does sound a good idea, - what I would suggest is run through the snowball link with both your existing figures, my post was based on Halifax being gone with the £1500 you have put by,

it comes a table so copy and paste onto word document

Then go in again with the new figures based on above and see what it comes out with.

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When you do the snowball calculations, - it gives you a blurb of how much interest saving over the period and time, - that would give you the best idea.

Don't leave yourself without any savings xx

Trigger1971

Morning all

I got this all pretty much sorted (thanks for your advice a couple of months ago) but had to go about it a slightly different way due to having to spend some money on getting my car sorted out.

Anyway my new dilemma is that having just been offered a 4.9 deal (for life) which of the two following cards should I transfer the balance from?

Card A has a balance of £3710 an APR of 18.9% and a £4900 limit
Card B has a balance of £6425 an APR also of 18.9% and a £10400 limit

The 4.9% offer is for £6500 so do I clear all of card A, close the account it and then use the remaining 4.9% on offer to clear some of card B or do I just clear all of Card B and then concentrate on clearing card A on a monthly basis?

I believe that credit companies look at not only how much you owe but also what's available to you and how many accounts you have open so I'm not sure which is the best (if there is a "best") card to zap first!

I should point out that I'll be wanting to remortgage in approx 4 months (when my current fixed deal ends) so if there's one of the cards that it would be better to clear from a lenders perspective then that's of great importance to me

grumbler

I don't see any difference.

If you want to close the card B check you used/available ratio to make sure it doesn't get close to 100%. That said, big available credit can negatively affect application too, depending on available/income ratio.

ic

Its easy to say do the balance transfer - however you may struggle to be accepted with all that existing credit, plus from the experience of my friends, its all too easy to transfer, then use the newly emptied card for some "emergency, one off spending" and just wind up making the situation even worse.

If you know you have the will power to cut up and shut down the cards after you've transferred a balance away, then do it. Don't just cut up the cards, as of course you'll inevitably be sent new ones at some point in the future when they expire, and then the temptation to spend is back again.

Trigger1971

I'm pretty good with the temptation side of things (well, I am these days!!) so as soon as the balance has been paid and any further interest has been cleared the cards will be cut up and the account/s will be closed. I'm guessing the best one to do is the higher of the two then as that also comes with the biggest limit therefore limiting what's available to me for when I go to remortgage though Grumbler mentions a used / available ratio too. Does this also come into play with people when you apply for credit with them? If so it's a right juggling act to keep them happy isn't it!!