Balance Transfer

alco_pop

I have a number of cards currently with different providers all still on the introduction offer period. 
Two have largeish balances. One of which I am wanting to put off paying, with a zero fee transfer if possible. This is because I am expecting to have some bills come up soon for the house.

Natwest (£5013.47) - end date 05/11/2024 (balance transfer 0% interest)
Barclaycard (£4661.54)- end date 07/09/2024 (0% purchase card)

Virgin (£1882.40) - end date 30/11/2024 (balance transfer 0% interest)
M&S (£1,000) - end next year (0% Purchase card)

I should get around £4700 from a fixed saver on 20/07. 
Around £1200 on 02/10 from regular saver.
around £2400 on 23/09 from a regular saver.

I can cover the cards, but would prefer to kick on one of Natwest or Barclaycard for 12 months, to leave some ready cash. 

I tried a check for Santander, but got a rejection. Though I'm not sure if this is because on Clearscore, it would still show my HSBC credit card, which I recently paid off.

I did previously have a Natwest Balance transfer, paid off, then cancelled the card. Was then able to reapply straight away as a new customer. 

So I'm not sure which way around to try it. 

1) Pay of Natwest, close it, then try get a new BT from Natwest. (current account also with Natwest)
2) Pay off Barclcard, then try and transfer the Natwest, either to Santander, or Barclarcard think both have zero fee and interest balance transfers?

Brie

So I'm seeing that you have at least £13k on your credit cards currently which means that you might have, maybe, £20k total credit available?  Or more?  Oh and your have your HSBC card - how much credit is available on that?  £5k or more?  So add your overdraft if you have one, phone contracts, monthly payments for car and home insurance as well as your mortgage you have a lot of credit that you are using or could use.

Mortgage aside - maybe £40k?  Can you income support that if you maxed it all tomorrow? That's what you need to consider if you want to apply for even more credit.    Especially when someone else like Santander see that you have opened up all of this in a very short time frame if they are all still on intro offers.  

So how to manage it - obviously you are going to pay off each card as the offer ends to avoid the high interest rates.  So Barclaycard first and then Natwest.  Hopefully by the time you get to the Virgin offer ending Bcard may have come up with something new to offer you but in my experience they are not very generous (but maybe that's just me).  Perhaps shut that down asap and wait a month or two to apply for something else with a purchase offer if you think you've got some big items needed soonish.

alco_pop

Brie said:

So I'm seeing that you have at least £13k on your credit cards currently which means that you might have, maybe, £20k total credit available?  Or more?  Oh and your have your HSBC card - how much credit is available on that?  £5k or more?  So add your overdraft if you have one, phone contracts, monthly payments for car and home insurance as well as your mortgage you have a lot of credit that you are using or could use.

Mortgage aside - maybe £40k?  Can you income support that if you maxed it all tomorrow? That's what you need to consider if you want to apply for even more credit.    Especially when someone else like Santander see that you have opened up all of this in a very short time frame if they are all still on intro offers.  

So how to manage it - obviously you are going to pay off each card as the offer ends to avoid the high interest rates.  So Barclaycard first and then Natwest.  Hopefully by the time you get to the Virgin offer ending Bcard may have come up with something new to offer you but in my experience they are not very generous (but maybe that's just me).  Perhaps shut that down asap and wait a month or two to apply for something else with a purchase offer if you think you've got some big items needed soonish.

Just to clarify, I cleared off and closed the HSBC card. No mortgage, no car. 

The main two balances are around £9600, but I have savings available now/soon that will total around £8,000

The work, I might need is for the roof, as I have been repainting the house and noticed damp at the top of the wall in the bedroom on the chimney breast, suspect from the roof. Also some damp coming through on an outside wall. 

Gandalf644

alco_pop said:

Brie said:

So I'm seeing that you have at least £13k on your credit cards currently which means that you might have, maybe, £20k total credit available?  Or more?  Oh and your have your HSBC card - how much credit is available on that?  £5k or more?  So add your overdraft if you have one, phone contracts, monthly payments for car and home insurance as well as your mortgage you have a lot of credit that you are using or could use.

Mortgage aside - maybe £40k?  Can you income support that if you maxed it all tomorrow? That's what you need to consider if you want to apply for even more credit.    Especially when someone else like Santander see that you have opened up all of this in a very short time frame if they are all still on intro offers.  

So how to manage it - obviously you are going to pay off each card as the offer ends to avoid the high interest rates.  So Barclaycard first and then Natwest.  Hopefully by the time you get to the Virgin offer ending Bcard may have come up with something new to offer you but in my experience they are not very generous (but maybe that's just me).  Perhaps shut that down asap and wait a month or two to apply for something else with a purchase offer if you think you've got some big items needed soonish.

Just to clarify, I cleared off and closed the HSBC card. No mortgage, no car. 

The main two balances are around £9600, but I have savings available now/soon that will total around £8,000

The work, I might need is for the roof, as I have been repainting the house and noticed damp at the top of the wall in the bedroom on the chimney breast, suspect from the roof. Also some damp coming through on an outside wall. 

Perhaps a couple of observations/questions:

If you spend all your savings clearing the credit cards, how do you intend paying a builder for curing your damp problems/fixing the roof?

Note that not all builders (in fact very few) seem to accept credit cards nowadays due to the transaction fees.

Of your current credit cards, how ‘maxed out’ are they? Can you show the credit limits for the individual cards.

How much are you currently paying towards them individually? Are you just paying the absolute minimums?

Savings aside, can you pay more per month to potentially clear a card before interest kicks in?

You say you bank with Natwest? In the Natwest app, are there any credit card BT offers which you could potentially transfer the Barclaycard to?

alco_pop

To clarify. I had been paying minimum with the money going in to the savings. The main question I think is that I have 
1 NatWest which was a balance transfer
2 Barclaycard, 0% spending.
I would have enough saved to cover them. But want to delay one so that I can use the money for work on the house.
I have previously cleared a NatWest BT then closed and reopened for another fee free BT. The risk doing that is that the date the interest free ends is Nov, whilst on the Barclaycard it's September.