Credit Card Debt - Advice

pickleiamin

Evening Guys & Girls

I am posting this on behalf of a friend. I have pointed them this way, so hopefully they will sign up. You guys helped me when I was in debt I still look on a weekly basis to keep myself in line

As I said, this is for a friend, so apologies for some information missing. They are hopefully going to sign up and fill them in, or let me know this evening and I shall post them up.

Now, a good friend has been down recently and they finally confided in me this weekend about their credit card debt. I have given them some pointers (first is to sign up here ) but as my debt was somewhat a bit different I wasnt too sure, so hence the post.

The debt is c16k accross 3 cc's. At the moment, the minimum is being paid on all cc's apart from one where only a few pounds more is being paid off each month.

They actually have 4 cc's but one which had 2k on earlier this year but was paid off when they had a bonus paid to them.

The CC's are not maxed. One CC has had their limit increased several times apparently so has potentially more space on it (I have made them cut them up!).

I have pointed them to the snowball calculator, which should help.

They are worried about applying for a zero balance transfer which would help as they already have 4 CC's. So should they close the zero balance one and apply for one? Close it and wait a bit and then apply for one?

They have had offers through on their current CC's for zero % balance on for so many months. Is it worth doing this as long as they do pay it off without adding more to it?

Any advice will be welcome, hopefully they will sign up soon and say hello.

Thanks again.

Tixy

Have they had any balance transfer offers on the empty account?
If not it could be worth phoning up and asking if there are any offers available as a starting point.

Presumably you have got your friend to find out the APRs on the 3 cards so they know which to target first, either with overpayments or with any balance transfer they are able to get?

If the empty card won't offer any balance transfer deal I would close it.
Then suggest to friend they check out the eligibility checker on here for balance transfers, it will give them an indication as to whether they are likely to get accepted for another card. http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/balance-transfer-credit-cards?_ga=1.263459652.91994898.1404996998#eligibility

If the chances don't look good then maybe wait a couple of months (for the empty account to show as closed on their credit file) and then try again.

If they cannot do any transfers to new accounts then it may be worth looking at transfers between the cards, they need to consider the fees/length of deal and the rate the APR reverts to afterwards.

Finally - can they look for ways to increase the amount they can put to the debts each month? could you help them with a statement of affairs and then both look through it to spot places they could make savings/check through for what they may be able to get cheaper etc (insurances/utilities/phones etc).

pickleiamin

Tixy

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I have given him my excel spreadsheet which I fill out religiously with my incomings & outgoings. I have got him to fill out the SOA
too.

I have also told him about the snowball and concentrate on the largest APR ones first.

Thanks again.