Partners debt query

MaxD1976

Hi there,

My partner owes a combined total of roughly £20,000 split over 4 credit cards and two loans. She has a 0% balance transfer card already for one of those debts but wants to merge the total credit card debt (roughly £3,000) onto a single 0% balance transfer.
Can this be done?
If so, how?

Many thanks,
Max

GrumpyDil

She'll have to complete two transfers, one to each card. 

fatbelly

If she can get a high enough credit limit, yes. She might need multiple cards. Check here

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/eligibility/credit-cards/search/

Rob5342

The thing to be very careful of is to make sure that she is sticking to a sustainable budget and actually paying the debts off. It's very easy to think it's now 0%, no problem, and start spending again on the newly cleared cards (which I did myself and got into a terrible mess)

fatbelly

Yeah that is quite a lot of debt to be running with. It might well be low/zero interest but she needs a plan (as our board title suggests) to get debt-free.

EssexHebridean

I’d personally suggest that on the face of it, her best plan now might be that once the balances are transferred, she closes the current cards to remove the temptation to spend again. The argument against this is often “but that can make your credit file look worse” but if it’s teamed with a robust approach at actually clearing the debt once and for all, rather than simply playing ping pong with it each time 0% deals end, and there is no immediate need for - for example - a mortgage application, this can actually be a good thing as it can restrict access to further credit, the risk of playing the shuffle game with 0% cards for a prolonged period is that eventually the access to those deals tends to run dry, and it often also goes hand-in-hand with debt either increasing (see also consolidation for this) or at the least stagnating - when as fast as some debt is paid off, more is accrued.

I’ll add that the above is a general suggestion - it’s clearly not possible to see the OP’s partner’s full situation here, and we have no information around budgeting etc.