0% credit card - quandry about what to do!

Pepperoni

Hi,

I'm going to have around £4,500 on a 0% credit card from the end of July. Its got at least 19 months at 0% left on it.

I can't decide whether to

A) Pay money as I have it available to clear card

Save everything I can to clear it - i.e. leave it in bank account, so it could technically be used in an 'emergency' but could also be used to clear card once full amount is saved up

C) Start saving for other things in life (emergency fund, child savings, holiday, etc) as well as paying the debt off (means it will take longer)

What do you think?

I have a bank account that earns 3% but I'm not sure I trust us 100% to keep the money in there and not touch it!

£500 in emergency fund so far.

bouncydog1

To pay it off in 18 months is £250 per month. If it's Barclaycard you can pay a set amount each month on the DDM so I would set up £250 per month by DDM and more or less forget about it, just checking each month that the payment had been taken.

If a card where the minimum varies each month because it's a % of the balance then I would ensure there is a DDM set up for the minimum payment each month. Then providing your bank operates a faster payments system, the day before the DDM is taken make a payment to bring the total for the month up to £250.

If the bank don't operate faster payments then pay a couple of days before the DDM is taken to make sure that the payment counts for that month.

Then I would set up a savings account and transfer anything extra over and above the £250 to it.

CalumHeath

The best way to pay it off would be to pay just the minimum payment + £1 every month and put as much money as you can into your savings making sure you have enough to pay the balance ( or transfer to another 0% card) at the end of the promotional period.

However, if you really don't trust yourselves to do this then you should pay it off as quickly as possible and be done with it.

This is only my opinion, for what it's worth.

rockm87

If you don't think you can trust yourself, then pay off the debt!

Can I ask why you have the debt? have you just made a large purchase or is it from living beyond your means?

If it is you need to sort out your budget, and then keep an emergency fund and use the rest to pay off the debt.

andyfromotley

Pay the minimum until your emergency fund is £1000.

Then throw EVERYTHING at getting rid of this debt. There are clever people who would put the money to better use while it was at 0% blah bah blah, you are not one of those people. (thats ok neither am i). being debt free is NEVER a bad option.

Skinnylatte

I would just pay it off as quickly as I could