Here Goes...Starting Up on a Journey

Floss

Superhoopza said:

In terms of the cards:
I have a £3k balance on barclaycard, I have about £1500 available credit on other cards. I am hopeful for a small pay rise, small bonus and potentially a tax relief rebate because of not recovering the full 40% on my pension contributions for the past 2 years, all to hopefully come in April. Hopefully all of this can add up to paying off the barclaycard in full. That means I can then have monthly spending on barclaycard and pay no interest monthly after the 3 month interest holiday is over. If I am then able to do that, I won't need to have my monthly spending on 118 and can close that card. This is where I have a question so wondered people's opinions. Closing the 118 card will reduce my total credit available by £4k, potentially helping to get a 0% card down the line, but also increase my utilisation. Which would have a bigger impact if my total debt remains pretty much the same?

Two things from me:
Firstly, personally I would not count things like pay rises, bonuses & tax rebates until I had confirmation & a date that they were incoming. These things often don't arrive when we'd like them to.
Secondly, surely your utilisation will be similar, if you have reduced the amount of credit available to you but you will have reduced the debt (factoring in the above)?

Superhoopza

Floss said:

Superhoopza said:

In terms of the cards:
I have a £3k balance on barclaycard, I have about £1500 available credit on other cards. I am hopeful for a small pay rise, small bonus and potentially a tax relief rebate because of not recovering the full 40% on my pension contributions for the past 2 years, all to hopefully come in April. Hopefully all of this can add up to paying off the barclaycard in full. That means I can then have monthly spending on barclaycard and pay no interest monthly after the 3 month interest holiday is over. If I am then able to do that, I won't need to have my monthly spending on 118 and can close that card. This is where I have a question so wondered people's opinions. Closing the 118 card will reduce my total credit available by £4k, potentially helping to get a 0% card down the line, but also increase my utilisation. Which would have a bigger impact if my total debt remains pretty much the same?

Two things from me:
Firstly, personally I would not count things like pay rises, bonuses & tax rebates until I had confirmation & a date that they were incoming. These things often don't arrive when we'd like them to.
Secondly, surely your utilisation will be similar, if you have reduced the amount of credit available to you but you will have reduced the debt (factoring in the above)?

Yeah just planning for the next couple of months, I won't be able to pay with anything I don't receive.

Second point - I mean if if I pay off a card, my utilization will have dropped (less debt). Do I leave the card open and have lower utilisation or close it, pushing utilisation back up but have less credit available. The goal is to get a 0% card/offer ASAP.

Superhoopza

Spoke to HMRC and got a pension relief refund arriving in a few weeks from the 2022-23 tax year. on 6th April I can claim for a similar amount for this tax year. Hopefully this all points to clearing Barclaycard (whilst maxing the others), which will mean two credit cards down, which were the highest interest ones.

Superhoopza

Looks like my plan of getting a 0% offer from Barclaycard is not going to happen. They've reduced my credit limit by 10% without telling me. I'm guessing this is linked to them waiving my interest for 3 months. I presume they will keep doing this as I reduce down my balance.

Superhoopza

Superhoopza said:

Looks like my plan of getting a 0% offer from Barclaycard is not going to happen. They've reduced my credit limit by 10% without telling me. I'm guessing this is linked to them waiving my interest for 3 months. I presume they will keep doing this as I reduce down my balance.

Turns out a letter was posted on my app the same day they lowered my interest so it must of been when the manager reviewed my account.

Superhoopza

Found out today I was eligible for consolidation loans by two providers, one of which I already have a loan with. Both are higher interest rates than I have credit for so not even a debate on whether to consider them. Hopefully a sign I'm starting to look a tad favourable to suppliers again. Probably more so coincidence.

Superhoopza

End of February-24 Update:

Credit Cards and Overdraft: £30,701
Loans: £22.623
Total Debt: £53,324

Emergency Fund: £60

Reduction in debt from previous month: £1,838
Total Reduction in Debt: £3,305

Notes:

• Spending and paying off 118 card in full each month so no interest being charged.
• 3 month interest waiver from Barclaycard starting next month
• Expenses paid from work in February which is partly why the saving is much higher this month.
• Tax rebate of £564 to be received next month.
• Potential small salary increase and bonus next month.
• Two trips next month (already planned before this) so it will be an expensive month so will look to have very limited spending when not on these trips.

Superhoopza

Got a "triple-lock" guarantee on clearscore's loan comparator for a £9k loan from Santander at 19.9%, cheaper than all my other loans and couple of my credit cards. The problem is I feel I've done the leg work and paid off a good amount of the interest of my higher rate loans and after they apply the further 58 days interest, I wouldn't be saving much, if anything by moving to a cheaper loan rate. What are people's thoughts about that? Happy to engage in debate, only thing I don't want to entertain is the argument that "consolidation loans aren't generally a good idea", that's not useful for me now. I just want to pay the least interest possible as quickly as possible.

MFWannabe

How long would it take you to pay off the debts if you don’t take out the new loan? How much interest would you pay in that time? 

Have you looked on the eligibility calculator at loans or balance transfer cards to see what you can get? 

If you give it a bit longer paying down the debts do you think you’ll get better offers than the current one? 

stymied

If this has come up already then surely something better will come soon