A Diary of Reinventing Ourselves

Eager_Elephant

Do you have enough scope on your cards to move one credit card to another and then back again to take advantage of any O% offers?


Sorry if that sounds confusing but what I mean is Card A has £10k (limit £20k) on at 18.9% and Card B has 10k on (limit £20k) at 15.9% so you move Card A to Card B and you would have to pay the balance transfer fee and then a week later (or less if showing up quicker) you move Card B with the balance of £20k back to Card A hopefully on a 0%.
(Obviously this is simplified and you would have to allow for maximum amounts permitted to be transferred and also balance transfer fees)


Even with the balance transfer fee's I think you would save a lot of money over the course of the next few years.

brizzledfw

Hi, have been reading but necessarily posting as you're getting lots of good advice here.

One thing re LBMs...they don't always come on and stay on. They can flicker. It's a bit like a New Year resolution I guess... You might go for it, hell for leather for a bit, then get weary, something happens like someone gets ill, kids having issues at school, work and it all dies off a bit and other things get in the way of this 100% focus/obsession. Me...I certainly had light bulb moments way way back, but only really got it together in about 2012. When OH got on board and we started to really throw everything we had at the debt. Became a joint endeavour if you like.
The main thing is not to beat yourself up if that does happen..just keep on coming back to it, pick up the MSE reins again...and pick up where you left off. Think I have said it before, it's a marathon not a sprint when you owe as much as you do (I had the same remember ). And life needs to be about lilies as well....as a lovely poster in here, Fortune Smiles, is fond of saying.

Have a great weekend

Brizzle X

Forward_thinking

Morning!!!! Life needs to be about lillies as well - love that!!! I've definitely had my LBM - it's consuming my every waking hour. Stayed up last night setting up YNAB. I know several of you have said it's not worth the effort but I want to dabble with it for a few days to find out what it is all about. I loved working with it last night - the sense of control was great. Just to be addressing it.

Eager-Elephant - we have looked into that but there isn't enough room. We would need to get another card as well and oh is determined not to do that.

We were supposed to be going to look at a car but it's raining so OH doesn't want to go!!! Adamant noone buys cars in the rain. Usually, I would go with that as I know they say not to but it does seem to be typical!!!:wall:

Forward_thinking

Just tried to have a sensible chat with OH about budgeting; said our problem is that we are always living in the past ie. this month's money is paying last month's commitments. So we are already in debt according to the budgeting tool. OH was very insulting and asked if I had only just realised this...well actually, yes I have. I know it's ridiculous and hands up, I've been totally oblivious to our finances thinking he was in control.

He did also say that budgeting is not going to work as we have commitments to pay off - I think he's being the naive one here and am not sure what he meant!! The budgeting is to pay off the commitments. Couldn't be bothered to ask him what on earth he meant. Still not happy about the car - really thought we might get somewhere this weekend. Garage is closed tomorrow. So we are looking at Monday - if it's sunny of course!!!

Forward_thinking

Oh, and OH says using a budget tracker is a complete waste of time and I am still playing in the teaspoon drawer rather than addressing the real problem.

Forward_thinking

I'm going to convert him......in a few months time he will agree that he was wrong!!! Oh no, OH is just asking 1 year old if he wants to go the shop with him. Where's he off to now?

Forward_thinking

:dance:He's got up on a Saturday morning and gone to.......Lidls

splatt30

I've been following but not posting.
Just wanted to pick up on something you said about it not being worth shifting a credit card balance.
As an example
Credit card A - balance £7k at 18%, limit 15K
Credit card B - balance £5k at 20%, limit 12k
Credit card C - balance £10k at 22%, limit £20k

If card A offers you a 0% balance transfer, you cold move £8k from card C to card A. Your minimum monthly payment to card A would increase and to card C would decrease, BUT £8 would be at 0%. If you then threw everything spare at card C that would be cleared much more quickly.

Or move the balance from card B - which would clear it, a couple of months down the line they may offer you a 0% BT, and you could move card C to card B at 0%.

Whilst your monthly repayments might change I would suggest that even with a BT fee it is nearly always worth moving a high interest balance to 0% if at all possible, you will pay less interest in the long run.

Forward_thinking

Thanks Splatt - really appreciate your post and its user friendliness. This is very similar to what we are looking at doing. We are going to pay off one credit card this month which only has £700 on it and hopefully they might offer us a new promotional deal. We will then transfer onto there.

Also, OH is looking to move 10k of a 20k card temporarily onto another card with room on. Someone has offered to temporarily lend him 10k to pay back the rest of the 20k. So that one is cleared. We will then move both back onto the card which will then be at 0% - ie. back from the other credit card and back from his friend. He is going to look at getting a money transfer back to his friend which will cost a bit more but will be safer (not sure what I mean with this last bit - steep learning curve - never been very good at maths). Anyway, the good thing is that OH is now out of the sand and making plans ie - to pay off the smaller one and get the money off the card and put it back on. Before he was totally in denial. And as we speak he is down at Lidls. So I have to give him credit. He still gets grumpy at most things I say but it is going in!!!

brizzledfw

Forward_thinking wrote: »

Morning!!!! Life needs to be about lillies as well - love that!!! I've definitely had my LBM - it's consuming my every waking hour. Stayed up last night setting up YNAB. I know several of you have said it's not worth the effort but I want to dabble with it for a few days to find out what it is all about. I loved working with it last night - the sense of control was great. Just to be addressing it.

Eager-Elephant - we have looked into that but there isn't enough room. We would need to get another card as well and oh is determined not to do that.

We were supposed to be going to look at a car but it's raining so OH doesn't want to go!!! Adamant noone buys cars in the rain. Usually, I would go with that as I know they say not to but it does seem to be typical!!!:wall:

Lilies and YNAB..

They are my north stars at the moment Glad you're enjoying the journey and dabbling