Two card route?

rotti163

Now I should explain I'm not very good with figures and money. I have an A&L credit card with a very high rate. I'm max'd out on it at £6.500 but as I can only afford to pay £150 a month and the interest is £148 a month I'm getting now where fast. I have aplied for other cards but the max limit I seem to be getting offered is around £3.500, with alot lower rates. Would it be better to split the balance between two other cards? Sorry if this seems a silly question but as I've said I'm not too clued up on things like this.

CLAPTON

well yes, if you can get a CC with a lower limit but also a low APR then of course use it for as much as possible and yes try to get a second one (at a lower APR of course ) for the remaining balance.

Just check that you can afford the minimum payments as some cards require 3% min payments and some require 2% minimum payments.

However, you also need to address increasing your payments so you can clear the debts. Look at your spending and start cutting back for a while until the debts are paid off.

GeorgeUK

How many cards have you applied for? As this can affect your credit score - don't do too many applications at the same time. If you look at some of my earlier posts, you will see i am in a similar situation.

I am trying to take advantage of the 0% interest promotions that are on right now (for Balance Transfers). RBS and i think Natwest seem to be offering the longest times, but you can check that on some of the main site articles. 90%-95% of your credit limit can be used for the BT. This should take care of the majority of your debt, and while you will still need to pay 2%-2.5% minimum charge on the card (as well as BT fee) you will be paying the money on the debt instead of just the interest.

Were any of the cards you asked for doing those promotions?

rotti163

Only the one so far. I've not activated it yet as I wanted to get this clear in my head. The card I went for was from citi bank, its a fee free card for transfer's. I thought I could transfer the full amount up to the limit? Interesting, thats something I didn't know, thanx for that.

justpaper

just a note u might wanna got for the 12months 0% on spend HSBC or Halifax card or both of them.. HSBC is a apply online and you'll find out in 60seconds if u got it or not dont apply on the phone as they only want more proof,. i cant beleive how is it is online then over the phone,.. anyways just a heads up,

like Clapton said cut back on ur spending and the spending you do have to do use the above cards,.

look up for :money: CC topic the halifax card link is in there EDIT >

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/redir/8cb23069

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/redir/dabee31d

GeorgeUK

Looks like this is the right way to go about it Rotti.
As Clapton suggested, look at the cards with the lowest minimum payments from those offering 0% for 12/13 months, if you are restricted on the amount you can pay

I used http://www.uswitch.com/CreditCards/CC_Output.aspx?ref=scp%7eCreditCards%7eCredit-Card-UK&i=1&SessionID=hT%2baaOCRjtLik0rcv1RG1dCGwRwjdEbr to search for the cards with the longest period, but you would need to look at the minimum monthly payments required for each.

good luck