Clearing Debt with Pension Payments

Moped

Hi, I’ve built up a sum of money on a credit card (£6k) to pay for our wedding.
I would like to start clearing this quicker to remove this payment from around my neck.
I’m thinking about stopping my business pension payments for a while and use the extra income to pay off the debt.
I was wondering what people’s thoughts are on this?

I’ve been paying into a pension since I was 18, and spent approximately 8 years paying into a final salary which was capped a number of years ago, so I have a healthy ish pension. I’m 38, so have been paying in for 20 years already.
I’ve been with my current business for 2 years.
I was thinking of stopping paying for 2 years, clear the debt and then restart the pension payment after this.

Any (nice) advice is welcome 😊

[Deleted User]

You're literally sacrificing your future retirement enjoyment for the sake of a wedding you cannot afford, madness.

It's too late for the wedding payments but can't your partner assist with it given presumably you both benefited? Go to the debt free pages on here and post a SOA to look for better ways to cut back

SiliconChip

In addition to the excellent suggestions from @Farfetch, if I understand your post correctly you have built up a credit balance of £6,000 on your card, this is very likely to be contrary to the card terms and conditions and could result in your account being closed with no notice. Even if that doesn't happen there is a theoretical possibility that any spend on the card will not benefit from S75 protection as there is no credit being used. I'd ask your card issuer to refund the money to a current account that you hold, and from there you could move it to a savings account until you need to use it.

impoverishedtraveller

SiliconChip said:

In addition to the excellent suggestions from @Farfetch, if I understand your post correctly you have built up a credit balance of £6,000 on your card, this is very likely to be contrary to the card terms and conditions and could result in your account being closed with no notice. Even if that doesn't happen there is a theoretical possibility that any spend on the card will not benefit from S75 protection as there is no credit being used. I'd ask your card issuer to refund the money to a current account that you hold, and from there you could move it to a savings account until you need to use it.

You’ve got the wrong end of the stick.
The OP has a 6k debt on the card. Not a credit.

Moped

Sorry the money has already been spent. The wedding has been and gone. I now what to clear the debt as quickly as possible. Sorry for the confusion 

[Deleted User]

Moped said:

Sorry the money has already been spent. The wedding has been and gone. I now what to clear the debt as quickly as possible. Sorry for the confusion 

Yes as I said - you have had a wedding you can't afford hence the debt.

As above - can your partner not pay, after all, it was presumably a joint wedding?

Go to the debt free pages and post a statement of affairs, don't lose 2 years of pension contributions (especially when units are cheap) to pay for a mistake, you would simply be compounding it.