No option to balance transfer

Fairywish1

Hi I have about £8500 on credit cards, I desperately want to change to 0% balance transfer as I'm only making minimum payments and the intrest is just 🤯 however due to poor credit history  no one is able to offer it to me.  What's the next step .. do I try and pay off the highest Aprs first? Or do I pay off the smaller cards first?
Thanks for helping!
 

Nebulous2

Hi there, welcome to the forum. This forum has the debt free wannabe section which supports people who are struggling with debt. It can be found here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/debt-free-wannabe

They will offer support and help. To get the best from it you will need to provide more information - doing a statement of affairs (SOA) would help you and them work out where your money goes, and how much if any you are able to commit to reducing your debt. 

CliveOfIndia

That's good advice from Nebulous2, the Debt-Free Wannabe board is a great source of help.

But in answer to your specific question, the basic principle is to prioritise the debt with the highest APR.

There is some psychological advantage to tackling the smallest debt first since you see the fruits of your labours more immediately, and there's a definite feel-good factor to clearing a particular debt completely.  But in terms of cold hard cash, you need to tackle the highest-rate debt first.

fatbelly

I take it that you've done a soft search and it shows no 0% offers

Do you know why this is? What specifically is causing problems? Have you checked your credit record, not just the score? Try

https://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/statutory-report.html

After that, yes, see you over on dfw

Nasqueron

Personally I would recommend the snowball approach but the financially sound one, unless you are the type to give up easily. Minimum payments on the lowest APR, throw all your other cash at the high APR, as that reduces, you pay off more balance, less interest is added. Rinse and repeat on the next highest APR

Brie

Agree that it should be max to the highest apr but also suggest you set a payment just above minimum on the others as well.  So if C1 minimum is £29, set the DD to £30.  C2 min £43.50 set the DD at £45.  With all your DDs set a certain amounts it makes is easier to budget.

Hope to see you on the debt free board - there's lots of good advice available!!