Pay more than the minimum if you want to stooze for long term

seatbeltnoob

I have been stoozing for just over a year now. Managed to get a pot of £14K.



I was finding it increasingly difficult to get a card with a respectable limit and interest free length for a while.



I was starting to get 1K, 1.5K with 12 months interest free and thought my stoozing days are numbered.


I was taking my cards up to 95% full, and then paying the minimum on each card.


Bad startegy I realised. You need to pay more than minimum (say double the minimum), and you need to utilise less credit so new cards see you as a good prospect and give you much larger limits and longer interest free periods.



I found out as my financial circumstances changed which meant I may need to claim universal credit in the near future (requires me to have less than £16K in savings). I decided to start reducing my stoozing pot so my total amount in the bank are less than £16K.


I started paying for all the cards in £500 amounts, reducing all my card balances. I receive a response from 2x cards which credt limit increases by £1K and £1.5K.


tl;dr: I'm posting because when I got into stoozing, I read a post a sort of beginners how to on how to manage the balances. I feel it's important to let everyone know it's a bad starategy to just pay minimum and utilise a CC to high

MallyGirl

I have never paid more than the minimum and utilisation has always been high. At one point my stooze pot was £85k. I am winding it right back these days as the 0% deals with zero/low fees just aren't there as often.

seatbeltnoob

My experience has been different that's all I'm saying. Maybe you would have access to more credit if you paid in more.

Retired_Mortgage_Adviser

Same as Mallygirl, I've been stoozing for a very long time now, only ever pay minimum and load up the cards as much as I can.

Superscrooge

My experience also same as MallyGirl. I have built up a stooze pot of £34K just making minimum payments.

adindas

Same Here. I am currently on my third Stoozing iteration. Never pay more than minimum.
Paying minimum + £1 is easier said than done as you have a handful number of credit  and the target keep moving. I did stoozing in cycle. e.g I finish one cycle first before starting another cycle. All I need is to set upi the DD with minimum amount and then forget it. I just need to pay attention the time to pay back all the money.
When you wanted to invest time on this, it will make stoozing become more complicated than it should be and at some points, it will not worthy, considering the time needed to be invested..