Help & advice neeeded !!!

howie94

Hi all

Im looking for some advice please on the following if possible:

I currently have 3 credit cards with the following companies and im deperate on what to do next.

Capital One £1550 balance £700 - 29%APR
Aqua £1150 balance £775 -34%APR
Vanquis £3000 balance £ 2800 -39%APR

Do i use all available monies from the Capital One & Aqua card and pay as much of the balance of Vanquis and keep paying not the normal but £50 more(which i do anyway) than lowest payment a month, OR
do i bring the Aqua card or Capital one card down to near zero and hope for a balance increase and the do the above with Vanquis a hole balance transfer?

In hindside im hoping to get a Credit card that all the above balances could be lured onto and have one monthly APR and payment going out but at the moment as ive recently got a car on finance that wouldnt be possible due to salary to credit worthiness.

Your help and kind words are most helpful, and thanks in advance

[Deleted User]

None of those are likely to be giving CLIs or BTs.

Pay as much as you can to the Vanquis, and min payments plus £1 to the others.

You could look for a new BT card, but I suspect that's not an option open to you.

Candyapple

Have to agree with zx81. All 3 of those are subprime cards so the chances of you receiving a mainstream card, which are the ones who offer decent balance transfer offers, are slim to none.

Even if you cleared both your Cap 1 and Aqua balances, why would you want to do a balance transfer onto them? It’s not like it will be a 0% balance transfer so you would be moving a debt from 39.9% APR to 34% and 29.9% APR.

Also, it wouldn’t be possible to shift the entire debt across both cards because your Vanquis debt is £2,800 and 90% of your combined credit limits of Cap 1 and Aqua is only £2,430.

You need to snowball your debt to clear Vanquis first and then once that is cleared move onto Aqua, then finally Cap 1.

In the meantime if you can work overtime do so, if not try and look for a weekend job / part-time work in addition to any full-time role, look around your home for stuff to sell on eBay etc. until you have cleared your debts.

howie94

Candyapple wrote: »

Have to agree with zx81. All 3 of those are subprime cards so the chances of you receiving a mainstream card, which are the ones who offer decent balance transfer offers, are slim to none.

Even if you cleared both your Cap 1 and Aqua balances, why would you want to do a balance transfer onto them? It’s not like it will be a 0% balance transfer so you would be moving a debt from 39.9% APR to 34% and 29.9% APR.

Also, it wouldn’t be possible to shift the entire debt across both cards because your Vanquis debt is £2,800 and 90% of your combined credit limits of Cap 1 and Aqua is only £2,430.

You need to snowball your debt to clear Vanquis first and then once that is cleared move onto Aqua, then finally Cap 1.

In the meantime if you can work overtime do so, if not try and look for a weekend job / part-time work in addition to any full-time role, look around your home for stuff to sell on eBay etc. until you have cleared your debts.

Hi all

So all monies on both Aqua & Capital One card total roughly of £1200 throw that towards the Vanquis card until the Vanquis is down to £100 maximum and then start paying the Aqua & Capital One cards back as much a month as possible ??

regards;)

Candyapple

howie94 wrote: »

Hi all

So all monies on both Aqua & Capital One card total roughly of £1200 throw that towards the Vanquis card until the Vanquis is down to £100 maximum and then start paying the Aqua & Capital One cards back as much a month as possible ??

regards;)

No, I don't think you understood what I meant. Have a read of this:
http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

So basically because you have debt on each card, they will all have a minimum repayment.

Vanquis on their website states 'depending on your APR, one of (i) 3.5%, 4.5% or 5% of the balance owing'.

Aqua on their website states: '1% of the balance shown on your statement (minimum £5)'

Cap One on their website states: '1% of the outstanding balance on your account'

Let's assume you have £200 per month to put towards paying off these debts.

Vanquis debt: £2,800 = (£98 min based on 3.5%) (£126 min based on 4.5%) (£140 min based on 5%)

Aqua debt: £775 = £7.75 min payment

Cap One debt: £700 = £7 min payment


So with the £200 you would allocate:
£7 to Cap One, £7.75 to Aqua and £185.25 to Vanquis.

Do this every month until your overpayments have cleared the Vanquis debt and then do it again but this time making overpayments to Aqua and then finally Capital One.

Make sure you have set up a direct debit on each one for the minimum repayment.

[Deleted User]

The Cap One and aqua minimum payments are 1% plus fees and interest. So they will be much higher than the numbers above.

Candyapple

Deleted_User wrote: »

The Cap One and aqua minimum payments are 1% plus fees and interest. So they will be much higher than the numbers above.

Good point.

I entered the figures on snowball calc, based on paying £200 per month OP would clear their debt in 3 years time and pay £2,220.83 in interest. :eek:


This is why you never spend and keep a balance on subprime cards! OP you need to find a way to make more money to clear your debts faster.

howie94

Candyapple wrote: »

Good point.

I entered the figures on snowball calc, based on paying £200 per month OP would clear their debt in 3 years time and pay £2,220.83 in interest. :eek:


This is why you never spend and keep a balance on subprime cards! OP you need to find a way to make more money to clear your debts faster.

Hi there

Ive just been accepted for a Barlcaycard 5k limit with zero percent interest for 18 months as a balance transfer, so the 3x mentioned credit cards above will be going into the Barlclarcard BT happy days and if i pay what i was paying for the above 3x a month to Barclaycard in 17 months ill have a zero balance by using the advice or statistics from the above snowball calculator . :T

Regards

Candyapple

That's great news howie, hope you manage to clear your debt and don't forget to close those 3 cards as soon as you have balance transferred them over to Barclaycard. That last thing you want to do is run up the debt on them again!

howie94

Candyapple wrote: »

That's great news howie, hope you manage to clear your debt and don't forget to close those 3 cards as soon as you have balance transferred them over to Barclaycard. That last thing you want to do is run up the debt on them again!

Hi Candyapple

Will it be the best idea too cancel all 3x cards immediately or maybe close the Vanquis firstly as being highest apr with the highest balance ??
Reason i ask i want my credit worthiness to stay
average too good and im unsure if i cancelled all 3x cards my credit rating will worsen or be even better ??

kind regards;)

Candyapple

As soon as you have done the balance transfers from all 3 cards, my advice would be to close all 3 of them straightaway. Reason being, you've ran up £4K on subprime cards, can you really trust yourself not to fall into the same trap again? Whatever led to the £4K debt whether underestimating your outgoings, buying things you don't need etc you need to address that to get to the root cause.

Once all 3 are closed, your credit history will improve given that:
a) You no longer have low limit sub prime cards which can often stop you from getting mainstream cards as lenders when they run a credit check on you and see low limit will assume sub prime
b) You will have more accounts settled which shows that you can pay back money satisfactorily
c) When your debt is paid off, you can have pick of the market with mainstream cards

Initially for a few months your credit "score" will drop temporarily this is due to a new credit account being opened and also the 3 cards being closed. However make sure you set up a DD on the Barclaycard for the minimum payment and clear that debt within the 0% period and your credit history will only get better.