Trying to get the balance right

Mrsfreshstart2023

peb said:

Maybe the minimum plus a fiver if you can manage it,  will prevent suggestions that you are in persistent debt and Al may help with the finding of new offers

Thank you for this. I didn't know this was a thing! Very helpful advice.

Mrsfreshstart2023

Lonelygambler said:

^ Good advice this. 

I’m currently snowballing my debt. Focusing all extra payments on one card and then paying minimums plus a bit extra on others. 

Keep going! 

I'm definitely going to give this a go next month. I feel like if I don't do it this way come November I probably won't have paid enough off this card to clear it. 

It's saves the need of another balance transfer fee which I'm hoping going forward I won't need.

Good luck on your own DF journey x

jokono

Natwest and Santander have no fee 0% balance transfer cards. The Santander one is only 0% for 12 months, Natwest used to be 22 months but it's now 13 I think, but rinse and repeat every year.

I'm doing what others have suggested with keeping savings and paying a bit more than minimum, and haven't paid a balance transfer fee in a very long time.

LadyWithAPlan

On YNAB I find that the reporting eg what you have actually spent vs your budget has really positively impacted my life and spending 

I suggest you watch Nick True YouTub videos on set up for YNAB as he makes it so simple 
I have been a keen budgeter for decades - spreadsheets , virtual
pots etc but YNAB has really made me look at where I spend or have transferred money out of one pot to another - my savings have gone up, my net asset value has gone up -  I can see my habits and where i choose to change and what’s important to me 
I honestly think the time taken to learn YNAB is so worth it - after a couple months it becomes fun and much easier 

there is a great thread on Reddit on YNAB - all raving about it and I can’t disagree - i spent years saying I don’t need it but 5+ months in I  so impressed by it - even in December seeing all my cash going out beyond my budgeted Xmas spend YNAB made me stop myself from those last extra gifts 

Spendless

I genuinely didn't know that about making min payment plus a little bit till I saw the above comments. Then I  had a think about it and realised we were doing that anyway, just because we rounded the payment up to £100 per month purely so it made it easier to keep track of, what we owed each month versus our growing savings to pay off. 

Think I'll also take a look at YNAB. 

Mrsfreshstart2023

I've been  trying YNAB free trial and I don't think it's for me. I'm going to keep persevering until the trial is up to see if I can get my head around it. I have watched the YouTube videos which helped.

Plan for tomorrow is to set up standing orders from my bill account to a different account to start building a credit card pot. My plan is to pay approx £50 off each card then put the other £400 (split up into smaller chunks) into another current account as I'm not sure I'll get much interest on instant access. Something I could look into though 🙂