How much to live on

LL_USS

Hi everyone may I ask if my credit limit for a purchase card is, say 10K, then is this 10K the limit of the total of WHAT I SPEND on the card, or the highest balance I can have (i.e. including the minimum payment in)? I google to see it seems the former, not the latter but feel I can't trust AI easily these days. Thank you.

Plasticman

LL_USS said:

Hi everyone may I ask if my credit limit for a purchase card is, say 10K, then is this 10K the limit of the total of WHAT I SPEND on the card, or the highest balance I can have (i.e. including the minimum payment in)? I google to see it seems the former, not the latter but feel I can't trust AI easily these days. Thank you.

It's the maximum balance that you can have on the card at any time. So if you spend £10k then pay the minimum amount - for example £200 - your balance will be £9,800 and you could potentially spend a further £200.

Organgrinder

LL_USS said:

Hi everyone may I ask if my credit limit for a purchase card is, say 10K, then is this 10K the limit of the total of WHAT I SPEND on the card, or the highest balance I can have (i.e. including the minimum payment in)? I google to see it seems the former, not the latter but feel I can't trust AI easily these days. Thank you.

When you say purchase card do you mean a 0% interest purchase card? As @Plasticman says it's the highest balance you can have and if used for stoozing you can keep topping up and stoozing that extra amount each month.

Plasticman

Organgrinder said:

LL_USS said:

Hi everyone may I ask if my credit limit for a purchase card is, say 10K, then is this 10K the limit of the total of WHAT I SPEND on the card, or the highest balance I can have (i.e. including the minimum payment in)? I google to see it seems the former, not the latter but feel I can't trust AI easily these days. Thank you.

When you say purchase card do you mean a 0% interest purchase card? As @Plasticman says it's the highest balance you can have and if used for stoozing you can keep topping up and stoozing that extra amount each month.

In practice I find that once I'm nearly at the card limit I get another card so don't come back to the old one for a while (or never if it's a relatively short term).

Organgrinder

Plasticman said:

Organgrinder said:

LL_USS said:

Hi everyone may I ask if my credit limit for a purchase card is, say 10K, then is this 10K the limit of the total of WHAT I SPEND on the card, or the highest balance I can have (i.e. including the minimum payment in)? I google to see it seems the former, not the latter but feel I can't trust AI easily these days. Thank you.

When you say purchase card do you mean a 0% interest purchase card? As @Plasticman says it's the highest balance you can have and if used for stoozing you can keep topping up and stoozing that extra amount each month.

In practice I find that once I'm nearly at the card limit I get another card so don't come back to the old one for a while (or never if it's a relatively short term).

I transfer onto an interest free balance transfer card - I'm sure I read you do too. Currently however I'm finding deals a little more tricky to come by. Fortunately I don't need to do another until January of next year, then March and then July. However, I will have in total around £24,000 on those cards and I have another £13,000 on other zero interest cards. If as I suspect I'm unable to transfer the whole £24,000 I'll probably start another round of interest free purchase cards depending of course on the interest rates.

Plasticman

Organgrinder said:

Plasticman said:

Organgrinder said:

LL_USS said:

Hi everyone may I ask if my credit limit for a purchase card is, say 10K, then is this 10K the limit of the total of WHAT I SPEND on the card, or the highest balance I can have (i.e. including the minimum payment in)? I google to see it seems the former, not the latter but feel I can't trust AI easily these days. Thank you.

When you say purchase card do you mean a 0% interest purchase card? As @Plasticman says it's the highest balance you can have and if used for stoozing you can keep topping up and stoozing that extra amount each month.

In practice I find that once I'm nearly at the card limit I get another card so don't come back to the old one for a while (or never if it's a relatively short term).

I transfer onto an interest free balance transfer card - I'm sure I read you do too. Currently however I'm finding deals a little more tricky to come by. Fortunately I don't need to do another until January of next year, then March and then July. However, I will have in total around £24,000 on those cards and I have another £13,000 on other zero interest cards. If as I suspect I'm unable to transfer the whole £24,000 I'll probably start another round of interest free purchase cards depending of course on the interest rates.

Yes, I've balance transferred where I can. About £30k now. When interest rates drop too far I'll probably stop again

LL_USS

Thank you @Plasticman @Organgrinder - yes it is a 0% interest purchase card. This is the first time I use it so only a few months and not transfer to another one yet.

@plasticman sorry i am quite clueless about this - what do you mean by topping up. Do you mean, say I pay in £200 then I can still have £9800+this 2000 = 10K to spend, and keeping on paying £200, in total all of my outgoing items could be more than 10K because I've already kept paying the minimum payments?

For e.g. my limit is 10K, I pay for a holiday 7K, pay back 700, then balance is 3,000+700=3,700. Can I pay something max 3,700 next or only max 3,000? Sorry I feel really dumb asking this.

Organgrinder

LL_USS said:

Thank you @Plasticman @Organgrinder - yes it is a 0% interest purchase card. This is the first time I use it so only a few months and not transfer to another one yet.

@plasticman sorry i am quite clueless about this - what do you mean by topping up. Do you mean, say I pay in £200 then I can still have £9800+this 2000 = 10K to spend, and keeping on paying £200, in total all of my outgoing items could be more than 10K because I've already kept paying the minimum payments?

For e.g. my limit is 10K, I pay for a holiday 7K, pay back 700, then balance is 3,000+700=3,700. Can I pay something max 3,700 next or only max 3,000? Sorry I feel really dumb asking this.

The card limit is what your balance can go up to.

Say your limit is £10,000 and your balance is £10,000 then at that point you cannot use your card.

But if you pay the minimum off, say £250 (2.5% of the balance) then you are free to spend another £250 on the card as your new balance is £9750. This additional spend would mean your balance again at £10,000.

Be careful though that you don't spend even a penny on the card once the interest free period ends.

LL_USS

@Organgrinder thank you very much. So I just need to make sure the balance on the card at any point is just under the limit (10K) then. Though I can keep paying the minimum in (say 250) then yes I can spend anothe 250 on the card. Got it!

No going over, and not spend when the interest free periods end. When this free period ends then either pay off the balance or do balance transfer.

I thought I was good understanding money

Plasticman

LL_USS said:

@Organgrinder thank you very much. So I just need to make sure the balance on the card at any point is just under the limit (10K) then. Though I can keep paying the minimum in (say 250) then yes I can spend anothe 250 on the card. Got it!

No going over, and not spend when the interest free periods end. When this free period ends then either pay off the balance or do balance transfer.

I thought I was good understanding money

Exactly that