Balance transfer lifers

TheAble

Just a brief observation is that while you see 0% deals as having saved you a fortune in interest over the years, another perspective is that they've caused you to accumulate 30k in debt. So you're a lot more deeply in the hole, arguably, than you would have been had they been interest-bearing. 

BalanceTransferLifer

TheAble said:

Just a brief observation is that while you see 0% deals as having saved you a fortune in interest over the years, another perspective is that they've caused you to accumulate 30k in debt. So you're a lot more deeply in the hole, arguably, than you would have been had they been interest-bearing. 

No because i needed the money so it would have definitely cost me more without the balance transfers. I'm just here looking for help to turn this around but feel free to judge and provide hindsight if that aids the process. 

TheAble

BalanceTransferLifer said:

TheAble said:

Just a brief observation is that while you see 0% deals as having saved you a fortune in interest over the years, another perspective is that they've caused you to accumulate 30k in debt. So you're a lot more deeply in the hole, arguably, than you would have been had they been interest-bearing. 

No because i needed the money so it would have definitely cost me more without the balance transfers. I'm just here looking for help to turn this around but feel free to judge and provide hindsight if that aids the process. 

I don't think you needed 30k though right? Better to have paid a grand or two in interest and be debt free than to have run up 30k for nothing. Interest, for its ills, does at least have a restraining effect.

Anyway the idea wasn't to judge but to caution that if you carry on down this road it will be 50k. Maybe time to turn the tide around?

fatbelly

We can point you to the most suitable strategy to getting you debt-free. But we need the detail.

theoretica

In a couple of months when the interest kicks in do your minimum monthly payments actually change?

Do you have other routes to increase earnings - taking in a lodger, for instance.  Other things we have seen help people turn finances around in the short term include selling expensive collections, giving up expensive habits (alcohol, tobacco, drugs, cars...)

If you go the debt management plan route you would undertake not to borrow any more money - would you stick to that and actually pay off your debt?  How long would it take you?  How long ago did your debt stop increasing?

EssexHebridean

The easy option is to say "oh but the loan will be lower interest" - but will it? If you are at the point now where you have zero chance of being accepted for any further 0% balance transfers, then the chances of you getting what most folk would consider to be a "low interest" loan are pretty slim. Have you actually done the double checks to ensure that you can't get even a small amount of the debt onto 0% via a BT?

The SOA is the key thing here - without that detail, we can make suggestions, but it's without any sound basis for explaining why those suggestions might work. Also - bear in mind that nobody here is being judgemental - TheAble made an extremely good point about the 0% transfers perhaps not always being as helpful as people think. I asked previously I think how high the debt was when you first accrued it, and when that was? The reason for asking that was to see how much impact you have made on clearing it over that time - if you first accrued £50k debt for home improvements for example 5 years ago, and you now have £30k of debt, that sheds a very different light on your financial position to if you started out with £32k of debt and have only cleared £2k. 

MEM62

BalanceTransferLifer said:

How would taking out further borrowing help you? Because it would be on an interest rate of half of that of the credit card when the interest free period ends and i don't have the funds to pay off the credit card balance? Therefore i'll be paying interest yes but it'll be less interest. 

It is easy to see how that would look attractive.  However, you need to be brutally honest with where your are with this.  If you have been unable to address the debt with years of interest-free borrowing, how are you going to address it now - bearing in mind that you may not get the best rates on offer.  You need a different approach, a plan B and the starting point posting is your SOA.