Credit Card and somewhat naivety

Mork90

Hi there.

I'm after some advice. I got given a credit card many years ago by my banks (LLoyds TSB). I can't quite remember why they gave me one as I didn't need one, but they gave it me anyway. People just said to me if I paid minimum payments it would be fine. Anyywayyyy...

I used it once to buy a tv 3 years ago (About £390) and was paying chunks of it off, and the only other time was about 10 months ago to buy an emergency plane ticket which took me to my limit (£400). Now, this may seem daft and naive of me, but I never really looked at the balance, I just paid the minimum when the statement came through the post and got on with it. You guys can probably see where this is going, but yeah, I've been paying the minimum of approx £12 a month off, but having checked through the statements, I've also been paying £9-10 a month interest on it. So basically I've not paid off that much of the credit card in the past 10 months.

I really don't want to waste money, and paying it off this way will take so much time and alas waste my money in reality. What's the best option? Is it to pay more a month? Or are there other options.

Again, you've probably heard this all before and I am a daft sod! So any advice will be listened to.

Thanks

bsms1147

What's your current balance?
What's the APR?
How much can you afford to pay off each month?

The more you can put towards the balance the better, as it will reduce the time it takes you to pay off and it will reduce the total interest you pay.

There are other options, but we'll start with the above as for most people it's the best route.

grumbler

Mork90 wrote: »

...People just said to me if I paid minimum payments it would be fine.

These people were idiots.

MSE article: Minimum Repayments

I really don't want to waste money, and paying it off this way will take so much time and alas waste my money in reality. What's the best option? Is it to pay more a month?

It is to pay the balance in full ASAP.

planenut

Easy for me to say, I can afford it, but if I use mine, I have a direct debit set up that pays it off totally each month, therefore no interest. But I only use it because it's a "reward card", i.e. I get a little bit of interest each use, and clearly that's a gain.
As has been stated you should try to pay off the total as soon as possible.
They give them to you because they know that eventually you will either be tempted, or actually need to use one.

Mork90

I can't quite afford to pay it off in full unfortunately. I think I'll have to go down the route of paying much more off a month.