Dealing with debt and advice

Gubz22

Hi all,


Wanted to post this in here to make sure I try my best to stick to it this time :rotfl:


Currently my debt sits as follows;


Vanquis card APR 33.9% - £2202.62 out of a limit £2250.00 (Random payments no structure so far)
Tesco's card APR 18.9% - £565.18 out of a limit of £800 (0% Balance transfer paying min)
Barclays card APR 19.9% - £1091.99 out of a limit of £3000 (0% Balance transfer paying min)
Halifax Loan APR 29.9% - £690.53 out of a limit of £2250.00 (Paying £177 per month)


So my intention is to do the following from the start of July;


My Halifax loan will run as normal and finish it's last payment in September which I am so happy about and gives me an extra £177 :T


Tesco's and Barclays 0% transfer fee finishes around February but has costing me no interest currently I want to hit the Vanquis card first.

My GF pays half the rent into my account around £280 I also have checked and if I stretch myself quite thin I could also pay £210 giving a total of £490. I believe this should wipe the card by around November but I would be happy with Jan. After that I will attack the Barclays card then Tesco's card.

My only worry is this could possibly stretch myself too thin. My credit score is poor currently as I applied for a balance transfer with Halifax some time ago and the app looped creating multiple searches thus crashing out my already delicate score. I have been building it back up and it's now just touching over 800.


I was wondering does anyone believe that using the likes of Marbles or Aqua for a few months to do a balance transfer from the Vanquis account just for a relief would be a good idea or would it be maybe one too many things to pay off at once? Also it would be yet another hit on my credit score (I recently applied for a consolidation loan at a reasonable rate and was turned down)

Really appreciate any ones thoughts on this.


Many thanks
Darren

fatrab

How long ago was your last credit application and how many have you made in the past 6 months?
Have you missed any payments in past 6 months?

If you were to get another 0% card with a shorter balance transfer offer period, could you definitely pay it off within the time frame?

£2202.62 + balance transfer fee (3%) over 6 months would be roughly £380/month.

Consolidation loan is rarely a good idea so concentrate on paying the debt off instead.

Welcome along

Money_Saving_Scot

Hey Darren, firstly well done for coming to the forum for help and support, what I would recommend you do is firstly open an honest dialogue with your creditors Vanquis,Tesco, Barclays and Halifax and I would be start be asking them for a break so that you can have some essential breathing space, to get your head and mind organised, and when your done that, during the 30 days you request, I would carefully write down a income and expenditure budget sheet so you can present them with along with another request asking for the interest to be either frozen, reduced or written off. Now if you don't know how to request these things dont worry I would strongly recommend National Debtline's Sample Letters which are really useful and I would serve those letter by email and followed up recorded postal mail. Once your done that let us know how you get on.

fatrab

Money_Saving_Scot wrote: »

Hey Darren, firstly well done for coming to the forum for help and support, what I would recommend you do is firstly open an honest dialogue with your creditors Vanquis,Tesco, Barclays and Halifax and I would be start be asking them for a break so that you can have some essential breathing space, to get your head and mind organised, and when your done that, during the 30 days you request, I would carefully write down a income and expenditure budget sheet so you can present them with along with another request asking for the interest to be either frozen, reduced or written off. Now if you don't know how to request these things dont worry I would strongly recommend National Debtline's Sample Letters which are really useful and I would serve those letter by email and followed up recorded postal mail. Once your done that let us know how you get on.

????? OP isn't paying interest on 2 of the debts, one of them is almost clear and he's trying to improve his credit history, not completely destroy it.

Gubz22

fatrab wrote: »

How long ago was your last credit application and how many have you made in the past 6 months?
Have you missed any payments in past 6 months?

Welcome along

I made an application for the loan on Monday but that's the last one I have made in about 6months-ish. I checked the credit club search history and it states the same so should be all good there

Money_Saving_Scot wrote: »

Hey Darren, firstly well done for coming to the forum for help and support, what I would recommend you do is firstly open an honest dialogue with your creditors Vanquis,Tesco, Barclays and Halifax and I would be start be asking them for a break so that you can have some essential breathing space, to get your head and mind organised, and when your done that, during the 30 days you request, I would carefully write down a income and expenditure budget sheet so you can present them with along with another request asking for the interest to be either frozen, reduced or written off. Now if you don't know how to request these things dont worry I would strongly recommend National Debtline's Sample Letters which are really useful and I would serve those letter by email and followed up recorded postal mail. Once your done that let us know how you get on.

Thank you. Does that work? Would they not just say it's part of the original agreement and that's it? Also if they did freeze the interest or the account would that in anyway impact my credit file negatively?

Many thanks
Darren

fatrab

I'd have a look at some of the 0% cards and do the eligibility checkers to see what you could get approved for without making a full application. If there's not much chance of you getting another 0% deal then I'd say throw everything you've got at Vanquis asap. It would be worth stretching yourself thin for a few months to get this cleared and hopefully that'll be a lesson learned


Once Vanquis and Halifax are gone you'll clear the other 2 in no time.


I certainly wouldn't be contacting creditors with this relatively small amount of debt, at £500/month you'll have it cleared in 9 months.


Best of luck.

fatrab

Post an SOA and be completely honest, I'm sure you'll get a few suggestions on other places you might be able to save
http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php