Getting FIREd up 😀

debtfreeoneday

Every time I have a weird 1poll question I think of you!  

But seriously - you haven’t got a moss bowl on your table as a center piece. It’s all the rage this year!  Off to fluff up my moss bowl as we speak. 🤣

Cornish_mum

Oh my goodness, a bowl of moss, those prices are bonkers. CM

South_coast

Do you know, I actually think some of them look quite cool (although a) I don't have a coffee table; and b) I'd be concerned what insects would be living in it), but those prices 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱 Surely no-one would actually pay that??? Not when moss and bowls are so abundantly available!

LadyWithAPlan

Oh I didn’t think about the insects ! On the dining table as well! 

I like those mini succulents though mine are growing at a far rate and a couple of orchids are coming into bloom again - not ideal when I am about to disappear for 10 days 

I have never done stoozing and before I get a mortgage would be a bad idea - but I get the stress of it - though one  could easily track them in YNAB 
was it worth the effort ? I assume it’s all on 0% cards that you put all spending on til the period ends out whilst getting  the interest from having extra cash elsewhere 
or is there another way to stooze? 

SuperSecretSquirrel

The good news is that you can buy artificial moss if you really like the "living in a post apocalyptic wasteland" look but don't want bugs living on your dining table!

Stoozing really comes into its own when you can money transfer rather than slow stooze. Transfer most of your credit limit into a savings account and just make the minimum payments each month. Only works for very cheap money transfers, when savings rates are good, and minimum repayments low, and at 0%. Not seen any offers worth jumping on for a long while now.

LadyWithAPlan

SuperSecretSquirrel said:

The good news is that you can buy artificial moss if you really like the "living in a post apocalyptic wasteland" look but don't want bugs living on your dining table!

Stoozing really comes into its own when you can money transfer rather than slow stooze. Transfer most of your credit limit into a savings account and just make the minimum payments each month. Only works for very cheap money transfers, when savings rates are good, and minimum repayments low, and at 0%. Not seen any offers worth jumping on for a long while now.

Post apocalyptic wasteland is so my preferred design style
tx on this info SSS 

South_coast

It was definitely worth the effort, as I was getting 5.2% on the money while I had it in my instant access (taxable once you hit the limit) and 4.25% on the ISA (obvs sheltered from tax). The money that went into the ISA was a money transfer with a 2.5% fee, from memory I think I worked out I'd be about £400 up on the deal at the end of the 18-month fix 🤔? That money is still in an ISA, I've just shuffled around the labeling on the spreadsheet so it "belongs" to something else and repaid the card from the easy access instead. The money that was going into the easy access was new spending, the idea being that once you get to the end of the 0% period on the card you hunt round for balance transfer deals to see if you can either get one with no fee, or one where the fee is lower than the interest you can earn. If not, you just repay the balance, no harm done as you've already got the money. 

That's the way I've been doing it anyway, you could also do it for debt repayment and either do a money transfer and then pay it straight against the debt, or (more fiddly) do your everyday spending on the card and then pay the same amount off the debt each time. You'd need to leave yourself enough to make the minimum payments each month though and there's the risk that if you can't get a decent balance transfer offer at the end (or the debt isn't cleared by then, thus freeing up cashflow) you've not actually got the money to repay it, so you might have to suck up a fee that's a higher rate than the debt you used the money to repay, so you end up worse off. Also, if you lose your income you've got a lot of credit card debt to panic about. So, much riskier. Not a choice I had to consider, being debt free 😀

I'm actually temporarily back on it at the moment, as I want to go ISA crazy at the start of the new tax year, and current projections are showing me about £500 short of where I want to be, so someone else's money will be handy for achieving that. Also, Sainsbury's Bank sent me a replacement card and it's still nowhere near as pretty as my Barclaycard, so I'm having a little sulk too 🤣!

South_coast

Ooh, SSS we cross-posted. Good to see that great minds think alike though 🤣!

CCW007

Between OH and me, we've got thousands stoozed, some of which came from money transfers which we then balance transfer before the 0% period expires. 

Some of the time I use BT offers to pay off the credit card we use for spending, if I time it right I can pay off the full statement and most of the next month's balance. This tops up the cash pot as I put the money I would have used to pay off the card into savings.

The best one was doing a BT to one credit card at 3% fee and then putting the money in the same bank's saving account earning 5.2% 😁

I am finding the offers from existing cards seems to be better than anything on the market for new customers at the moment.

South_coast

I would agree with that, the money transfer I did was an offer on an old account I hadn't used for years and they were just about to close down when the card expired, and the big 0% on purchases card I've just taken out for the refurb spending was a second card from an existing provider