Lightening my CC burden, a little advice please

dazinuk

All, apologies if this has been covered lots of times. But as succinctly as I can put...

I owe over £6500 on my MBNA cc. I've recently got it under its £7000 limit after a period of financial difficulty which included a spell out of work (about 2 years ago for about 6 months).

I'm now in my 3rd month of a new permanent job, paying £28k a year. After about 18 months of contracting. When applying for other cards, will they laugh in my face as they look at my cc history, the balance and/or my credit history?

On the subject of my credit history, I've admittedly not been the best borrower, but I have always paid off my debts in the end, which I hear actually improves your credit rating. Is this true?

And how should I go about applying for new cards? Should I apply for lots of 0% BT cards wanting to only transfer 1-2k? Or should I just put up with my lot for another 3-4 months, or maybe even longer??

Thanks in advance

fatboyonadiet

Welcome, maybe get your credit file first and find out your credit score by using www.zopa.co.uk, just register and you can find it out for free. You might be OK as it was 2 years ago and if you're history has been good since that helps. I think try applying for 2 maybe 3 cards and leave a minimum of 4 months between new applications.

dazinuk

Thanks 'fatboyonadiet'. I'll check out zopa.co.uk as soon as I get home. Thanks for the 4 months tip, I didn't realise it took so long. Time to get organised in so many ways. I've just filled out the budget excel spreadsheet and predictably, I'm spending more than I earn. Oh hum, the fight starts here.

dazinuk

Originally I forgot to mention I'm paying off £250 a month, but as you can imagine the interest takes most of that.

Zopa.co.uk gave me a credit rating of 330, and I got the impression that wasn't very good (I think the average Joe is rated above 400). But I also noticed it would be affected by the amount of credit applications. Which to be honest makes me feel trapped in a vicious circle.

It seems I can't make it better without making it worse. <sigh>