Credit card payment question

MrsSippi

I currently have about £2,500 on a credit card at a rate of 17.95%. Due to paying for a number of 'extras' recently (things that we wouldn't usually have to pay for i.e. wedding gift, repair to car,xmas etc) I have only been able to make the minimum payments but I want to start tackling it properly again from next month with a view to clearing the debt within the next 6 months. I was just wondering though - if I was literally to pay an extra £5 (minimum) as and when I have it spare would that help at all or given that the balance is so high is it better to lump it all into one payment once a month?

bigadaj

I suppose the first thing to say is that wedding gifts, car repairs and xmas aren't really extras and are entirely foreseeable so should be budgeted for.

You are currently incurring around £35 a month interest, in theory the earlier you pay it off in the month then the less interest you pay, though £5 here and there isn't going to make much of a dent.

Might be best to head over to the Dfw board and do a statement of affairs, it's not a huge debt but it's a fairly high interest rate which is costing you a lot relatively speaking.

YorkshireBoy

At 17.9% APR, each pound of balance is costing you 1.38p a month in interest.

So if you reduce the balance by an extra fiver you'll save 7p over the month!

Far, far, better to concentrate your efforts on earning more (overtime, 2nd job?) and/or spending less (frugal month, beans on toast, walk instead of driving, turn the heating down/off, etc, etc, etc).

The obvious question is why you haven't tried to switch the debt to a 0% BT card?

MrsSippi

Thanks for all the replies - they've been really useful. It sounds as though I'm best off just plugging away at it. In a couple of months it will start decreasing a lot.

With regards the money for car and xmas etc - I do usually put money by every month for these but unfortunately my husband was made redundant earlier this year and we had to dip into these savings to tide us over. This is part of the reason the credit card balance is so high. Now he is back working we are just focusing on clearing this debt.