Got myself into a mess and I want to get myself out

[Deleted User]

MoneyEM wrote: »

but in 11 months you will get bumped onto a higher rate (for example, my 0% card would go up to 17.48%, but the OPs rate may be much higher than mine)

Higher than 30%?

Of course, we're all speculating at the moment.

What we need is a SOA from the OP.

binaryuniverse

I would also suggest attacking the 2 low total cards first. Get rid of those and you get 2 monthly outgoings gone, and a sense of relief that you're actually getting somewhere. Then start throwing all available cash as the store card.

However, have you tried applying for a 0% balance transfer card? Tesco have a card offering 0% for 24 months (although this may vary). They are also fairly easy to get and, in my experience, give some pretty generous limits. If you could get one of those, you could potentially shift most of your debt to it, and have 2 years of money servicing just the debt.

Alternatively, have you tried phoning your credit providers and asking to have the interest reduced as it's costing you too much? Even a small reduction will let you pay more off the debt, rather than servicing interest.

EssexHebridean

Another smart trick for you - where you're snowballing highest interest rates first, set the monthly payments on everything else that works on a "minimum payment" basis to a level slightly above what is currently payable - so a minimum payment of £33.87 might become £35, for example. That way you avoid the issue of the minimum payment falling each month as you pay off. This has two major advantages - firstly that you chip away a little more at the capital balance each month than you would with a standard "minimum payment" set, and secondly that you have a round figure going out each month and know precisely what that figure is - so you don't end up with random additional money in the bank account that will simply end up getting frittered. Bear in mind though that this method ONLY works where you are not using the cards - otherwise you;re setting yourself up for all sorts of trouble!

System

Maximum_Saving wrote: »

I suggest you try to do Dave Ramsey's snow balling your debts.

Dave Ramsey is wrong in the way he says to do this, he is on several things, and it wastes money paying more interest than you need to if you do it his way.

On a pure "making your money work the hardest for you" basis, what you should do is this:

1) List the credit cards in order of interest, highest interest first, lowest at the end.
2) Pay the minimum on all cards with the exception of the first on the list.
3) Pay absolutely everything you can off the first card on the list until it is cleared then remove it from the list.
4) Go back to 2, rinse and repeat until they're all done.

[Deleted User]

Tarambor wrote: »

and it wastes money paying more interest than you need to if you do it his way.

In some cases, it not just wastes money.

It wastes time too.