Stoozing: Make Free Cash from Credit Cards article discussion

rachaelamy

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

That's a shame that you can't get more credit.
Have you got a partner who could apply for a new card and transfer the balance to that?
Or a parent or someone who could lend you the money in the short term?

The good news is that, according to today's weekly email, FSCS should be paying out in November so with a bit of luck you won't take that much of a hit.

Remember to continue making the minimum payments. If interest is being added the minimum might go up.

thank you. in fact, i went to my mum who went to my grandma who went to my uncle who said he'd lend it to me in the short term. thank god for family! And it's really good news about Nov payouts. Fingers crossed eh?

mickey54

Hi...can someone explain stoozing to me please?

johnllew

mickey54 wrote: »

Hi...can someone explain stoozing to me please?

Read all about it here, in the Quick Start Guide: http://www.stoozing.com/g_quickstooz.html

VoucherMan

Newbie here!
I'm still working my way around the forum and found this thread so thought I'd ask for suggestions.

I used to use 0% balance transfers a lot in the days before transfer fees were introduced, but only came across stoozing after fees had been introduced.

My MBNA card keeps offering me 0% for 9 months on cash advances, subject to a fee- 2% I think.

I estimated I could make about £90 in 9 months using a cash ISA. A stoozing calculator came back with £54 but I may have typed in wrong interest rates. I've got a £10,000+ limit on my card so could put the rest in a high interest account but previous posts on this thread suggest I would only get a return of about 0.9% from that.

Whichever way it's not a great investment. I haven't tried applying for a new card yet. I could possibly get a better return that way.

Any suggestions on the best way to start? Or have I left it too late to join the Great Stoozing Club?

JimmyTheWig

9 months 0% for a 2% fee isn't particularly good. You'd probably be better with a new card where you should be able to get 15 months 0% for a 3% fee. But then you've got the problem of getting the balance into your savings account - with your MBNA card that would be easy as you can transfer the money straight into your current account.

There are two problems with stoozing at the moment.
1. Instability of banks. If you have £10k debt on a credit card and £10k savings in a bank, what happens if that bank goes down? You would get your money back eventually from the FSCS, but that could potentially mean you not being able to pay off the credit card before the 0% ran out and you would pay high rates on interest on the outstanding balance.
2. Falling interest rates. With the BoE slashing interest rates, savings accounts rates are probably coming down. When you are talking about a serious amount of your net earnt interest being used to cover a balance transfer fee this can really cut into your profits.

Not a great time to start stoozing, but there is still money to be made. You just have to be a little bit more careful.

npw32jnw

Quick question for Jimmy and Rodent who seem to be the resident experts - I am stoozing at the mo for my offset mortgage - approx 37k at present on 7 different cards. How safe is it to apply for yet more cards and get more credit - at what point do the credit card companies start to say no - I have an excellent credit rating. Also, how do I get credit limits increased. HSBC would only give me £1500 recently, I am looking more at 5k a card if poss.

JimmyTheWig

npw32jnw wrote: »

Quick question for Jimmy and Rodent who seem to be the resident experts

Blimey, I wouldn't say that. (Not about me, anyway.)

I am stoozing at the mo for my offset mortgage - approx 37k at present on 7 different cards. How safe is it to apply for yet more cards and get more credit - at what point do the credit card companies start to say no - I have an excellent credit rating. Also, how do I get credit limits increased. HSBC would only give me £1500 recently, I am looking more at 5k a card if poss.

There's no fixed rule. Most importantly, don't bite off more than you can chew in terms of remembering to make the minimum repayments and remembering to pay them back on time, etc.
I would say, however, that 7 cards sounds like quite a lot. And £37k is quite a lot, also, depending on your salary.
In one sense you may as well continue to apply - and stop, maybe, at the first rejection.
Or you could decide that a £1500 limit is pathetic and this itself is an indication that you have reached your limit. This is what it feels like to me. Was the card you applied for before HSBC also a low limit?

As far as I am aware it is as good as impossible to increase your credit limit with a card company _before_ you have become an established customer. You generally can't then benefit from the introductory deals - so a bit of a catch 22. Obviously an increased credit limit would be good for repeat offers from the same company, but that relies on the card company making you an offer.

I would say that with 7 cards on the go you have probably already got all of the best deals on the market and are now making your way through the "normal" deals (e.g. 12 months at 0% with 3% fee).
From my perspective you are better off waiting until you have paid off some of your others, then you are likely to get better limits for introductory offers that you haven't done yet. otherwise you run the risk of using up all of the offers with low limits.

Saying all of this is assuming that, as you are stoozing, you have no real _need_ for an extra £5k and that that figure was just the sort of limit you would hope for (and would make the effort worthwhile for).

YorkshireBoy

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

From my perspective you are better off waiting until you have paid off some of your others, then you are likely to get better limits for introductory offers...

Twice over the last year or so I've more-or-less completely paid down my cards and started again. This has paid dividends because, by making multiple applications in quick succession, I've increased my stooz pot both times. The last round of applications a couple of months ago saw me drop from £45K to £5K and climb back up to £60K...a record for me (although it did involve a £10K A&L overdraft stooz).

I think if you're stoozing around 80-100% of your salary you're only ever going to get low 'top-up' limits (if anything) on new cards, making the reward not worth the admin involved.

Each to their own though!

JimmyTheWig

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

by making multiple applications in quick succession

Does this mean that if you time it right that two companies can see you have no (or little) debt and so give you a decent credit limit while if you had done one application then a second once you'd done the first balance transfer then you'd get a lower limit on the second?

rodent

npw32jnw wrote: »

Quick question for Jimmy and Rodent who seem to be the resident experts - I am stoozing at the mo for my offset mortgage - approx 37k at present on 7 different cards. How safe is it to apply for yet more cards and get more credit - at what point do the credit card companies start to say no - I have an excellent credit rating. Also, how do I get credit limits increased. HSBC would only give me £1500 recently, I am looking more at 5k a card if poss.

Wouldn't class mysef as an expert ! but can give you me opinion ..

cc Co's start to say NO when they feel you have enough credit in relation to your income and other outgoings.(and your track record of managing finance is upto it !)
This is going to vary massively from individual to individual.

Getting CL's increased is fairly straight forward ..just ask ...but get ready for "we will review your acc in 6mths" as the stock answer!

Personally I have found that requesting a high BT on app (my stock request is 20K) will get you a much higher credit limit at the offset ...

Re 37K ....had a marketing call from mbna this week offering a card with upto 50K cl ......so dont be put off yet !

Highest limit i have had on one card is 59K (i think ..from mem!) most cards "running" was 25 (between me and Mrs R) and biggest pot acheived to date was 250K ...all at 0% !!

Also recent conversation with mbna csa confirmed that she had spoken to "quite a few " customers eho held in excess of 10 mbna cards (that's JUST mbna ..not inc others they may hold !!)

So i dont think you have reached the end of the road yet !

The Above has been discussed to death over on http://www.stoozing.com/forum/YaBB.pl check it out !



The Rodent