Interest on Aqua card is crippling !

honeybee_6

Not sure if anyone can advise me . I am paying a huge amount of interest on the aqua card I should never have got !

After credit card debts in my 20s I managed to steer clear of them for twenty five years and now am back where I started .

Lots of reasons and excuses , carer for elderly mum , losing work ( self employed etc etc) , paying vets bills , but basically being bad at managing money !
Got high aqua card and then another to try and pay off and of course all got out of control .

Have three cards adding up to around 11,000!
Aqua £4258 . Paying around £170 per month but £126 interest
Virgin £2527. Minimum payment £61 with interest at £37
Mbna £4348. Minimum payment £62 . Interest free .

Im therefore paying out about £300 a month minimum with almost £170 interest.
I try and pay around £200 to aquq and £100 to the others but even this is crippling and obviously on top of other bills and rent .

My credit score isn't good at around 300 so there doesn't seem to be an option of getting another card to transfer and I cant really put much more money onto aqua and of course its not really shifting .

Just want to try and get back on track but feel like I'm hitting brick walls !
Any advise would be greatly appreciatted

eskbanker

You're probably right about getting a decent 0% BT card but no harm in trying the eligibility checker at https://creditcards.moneysavingexpert.com/?balance-transfer just in case.

Unfortunately, if refinancing your debt isn't viable then this just leaves the two obvious but less palatable ways of reducing it, i.e. earning more or spending less. You may think that you're doing all you can on that front but chances are there will be things you've overlooked, so try posting over on the debt-free wannabe board, where there will be plenty of helpful suggestions if you share your current income and expenditure details via a statement of affairs!

Terry_Towelling

There are many on here who will tell you that your credit score is meaningless, that only you can see it and it is basically made up by the score provider in order to be able to target you for certain offers. That said, your credit history probably does have influence over your score.

As Eskbanker, says give it a try with the eligibility checker - even getting some of the Aqua debt onto 0% will probably help.

On a slightly different note, is your mum claiming Attendance Allowance (AA)? She may qualify and that could open the door for you to claim Carers Allowance. Sadly Carers Allowance (CA - £65 per week) is taxable and affected by earnings, but it covers your NI contributions and, because you are self-employed, you may be able to reduce your work load to take advantage of the CA.

Whilst that may seem a ridiculous idea, it is possible that balancing a reduction in your working hours/days with the CA income will also reduce any work-related expenses (e.g. petrol for travelling to work) and thereby free up cash for you. It may not help if you have to give up too much income and it is obvious that you are indeed earning more than £300 pm so CA may be a non-starter - but still worth looking into.

AA for your mum may also allow her to qualify for certain Local Authority reliefs such as a council tax discount (possibly). As her carer, you may be able to share the benefits of her AA as if you were her paid carer - one presumes that is what the AA is intended for.

Just some ideas to come at the problem from a different angle when the direct approach is hard to access.

dazzaofdagenham

Will aqua agree some sort of repayment plan with you if you are struggling to much....I mean paying in excess of 100 pounds in interest each month is simply ridiculous....

When I pay more than 10 pounds interest on a card....that is a wake up call to me to stop spending

Gf3

Hi, I had the same problem. Through my own fault I managed to get a huge crdit limit with Aqua and I utilised a large amount of it. I was within my budget with repayments but then the interest rates went up and so too the repayments. It got to the stage that Aqua was taking more than I could afford, taking double what they were previously and because I had utilised such a large amount with them, I couldn't get a balance swap to a cheaper card. Eventually I had to get a loan to pay it off and now I owe them nothing. I hope you get it sorted. I will add one more thing for anyone thinking of taking their credit improvement cards, don't. It really did nothing to help.

Craig1981

morning

im assuming that as your MBNA is interest free currently, you have already transferred your Aqua balance once before? however as you have explained, needed it for your daily expenses, topping up income etc, which means you back to where you started

Have a look at another 0% BT deal, but doubt it would be successful, IMHO

your Aquacard alone if it is at 39.9% APR, paying the minimum each month will still take nearly 4 years at an interest cost of £3278 to clear

any other debts?
i would strongly suggest speaking to Stepchange, National Debtline or CAB do go through some budgeting exercises and see best way forward for you

dazzaofdagenham

Gf3 wrote: »

Hi, I had the same problem. Through my own fault I managed to get a huge crdit limit with Aqua and I utilised a large amount of it. I was within my budget with repayments but then the interest rates went up and so too the repayments. It got to the stage that Aqua was taking more than I could afford, taking double what they were previously and because I had utilised such a large amount with them, I couldn't get a balance swap to a cheaper card. Eventually I had to get a loan to pay it off and now I owe them nothing. I hope you get it sorted. I will add one more thing for anyone thinking of taking their credit improvement cards, don't. It really did nothing to help.

As much as I agree wit( you in most of your statement.....I disagree with your last sentence, these are credit building cards and discipline needs to be applied.

I myself owed quite a bit on a card with crazy interest rates a few years ago....and was basically just paying the minimum amount each month to stay afloat.....lucky for me I had a decent PPI claim and cleared the balance......I still have and use the card, but am very very careful now as to how I use it

honeybee_6

Thank you so much for such helpful advice .
Although I got myself into this mess I realise now how crazy to be paying out this much interest !
I guess its a vicious circle because the amount of bt credit cards on offer to me at present are very limited and wont really touch the amount to clear and the only way of getting any better deals is to improve the credit score which means not defaulting on aqua .
As my work is reducing due to mums illness, trying to double work is not at option !
If I go down the debtline route etc I guess thats the end of credit which is probably for the best as I survived many years without !

CakeCrusader

Tesco often have 0% balance transfer cards. I have a 'poor credit rating' and managed to get one, so it's worth registering for the credit club to see for yourself. Even if there isn't a lower APR card showing when you register it doesn't mean there won't be one in the future as the offers seem to change.



MBNA isn't an easy card to get, your credit file may not be as bad as you think it is. As mentioned above, it's worth doing a statement of affairs so that people can see if you can make savings.

ywlgy

I am sorry to hear that. Now I know how aqua being able to give 0.5% cashback whilst still earning money.

[Deleted User]

ywlgy wrote: »

I am sorry to hear that. Now I know how aqua being able to give 0.5% cashback whilst still earning money.

Meaning what?