Quick way to create debt

morgmonster

Fingerbobs said:

Juno_Moneta said:

Fingerbobs - you should read my follow up reply above to a similar query. 

I’m making plenty of interest thanks!

I must be missing something fundamental here, because I still don't see any benefit at all to doing this.
If the council or utility company has the money, that's money you're no longer earning interest on, regardless of what you do with the credit card balance afterwards. The only way to make this work would be to get the council/utility to refund the overpaid money to you. 

It's a 'slow stooze' - If i did this, then each month instead of paying the £350 to the council (cry) and £200 to Octopus I would be able to put that £550 into whatever savings account instead. eventually it would add up to the total you BT. Yes you don't get the lump up front unlike the 'buy it and get a refund' idea so obviously if the BT 0% period is only for 12 months then you're not gaining much, esp if the BT has a fee. But the longer it is, the more you gain.

Fingerbobs

morgmonster said:

Fingerbobs said:

Juno_Moneta said:

Fingerbobs - you should read my follow up reply above to a similar query. 

I’m making plenty of interest thanks!

I must be missing something fundamental here, because I still don't see any benefit at all to doing this.
If the council or utility company has the money, that's money you're no longer earning interest on, regardless of what you do with the credit card balance afterwards. The only way to make this work would be to get the council/utility to refund the overpaid money to you. 

It's a 'slow stooze' - If i did this, then each month instead of paying the £350 to the council (cry) and £200 to Octopus I would be able to put that £550 into whatever savings account instead. eventually it would add up to the total you BT. Yes you don't get the lump up front unlike the 'buy it and get a refund' idea so obviously if the BT 0% period is only for 12 months then you're not gaining much, esp if the BT has a fee. But the longer it is, the more you gain.

Yes, I get that. What I can't see is how there is any advantage to paying a lump-sum up-front for payments that haven't become due yet. It's pointless. It's like paying Currys for a fridge I'm going to buy in a year's time. OK, I'm effectively not paying for the fridge because it's on 0% credit, but I needn't have given the money to Currys until I actually wanted the fridge. What's the point? 

jim1999

I figured out a few options over recent years, but I think all of them have been closed down now.  Not aware of anything that really generates a reasonable amount quickly with no risk at the moment.

ussdave

Fingerbobs said:

morgmonster said:

Fingerbobs said:

Juno_Moneta said:

Fingerbobs - you should read my follow up reply above to a similar query. 

I’m making plenty of interest thanks!

I must be missing something fundamental here, because I still don't see any benefit at all to doing this.
If the council or utility company has the money, that's money you're no longer earning interest on, regardless of what you do with the credit card balance afterwards. The only way to make this work would be to get the council/utility to refund the overpaid money to you. 

It's a 'slow stooze' - If i did this, then each month instead of paying the £350 to the council (cry) and £200 to Octopus I would be able to put that £550 into whatever savings account instead. eventually it would add up to the total you BT. Yes you don't get the lump up front unlike the 'buy it and get a refund' idea so obviously if the BT 0% period is only for 12 months then you're not gaining much, esp if the BT has a fee. But the longer it is, the more you gain.

Yes, I get that. What I can't see is how there is any advantage to paying a lump-sum up-front for payments that haven't become due yet. It's pointless. It's like paying Currys for a fridge I'm going to buy in a year's time. OK, I'm effectively not paying for the fridge because it's on 0% credit, but I needn't have given the money to Currys until I actually wanted the fridge. What's the point? 

The point is that you don't have that money up front. 

Unless you've got a good money transfer option then you're reliant on building a savings pot from your income.  The point of using a 0% purchase card to effectively reduced your bills to 0 for a period is that you'll be able to put more of that income into savings sooner.  

easyasonetwothree

Fingerbobs said:

morgmonster said:

Fingerbobs said:

Juno_Moneta said:

Fingerbobs - you should read my follow up reply above to a similar query. 

I’m making plenty of interest thanks!

I must be missing something fundamental here, because I still don't see any benefit at all to doing this.
If the council or utility company has the money, that's money you're no longer earning interest on, regardless of what you do with the credit card balance afterwards. The only way to make this work would be to get the council/utility to refund the overpaid money to you. 

It's a 'slow stooze' - If i did this, then each month instead of paying the £350 to the council (cry) and £200 to Octopus I would be able to put that £550 into whatever savings account instead. eventually it would add up to the total you BT. Yes you don't get the lump up front unlike the 'buy it and get a refund' idea so obviously if the BT 0% period is only for 12 months then you're not gaining much, esp if the BT has a fee. But the longer it is, the more you gain.

Yes, I get that. What I can't see is how there is any advantage to paying a lump-sum up-front for payments that haven't become due yet. It's pointless. It's like paying Currys for a fridge I'm going to buy in a year's time. OK, I'm effectively not paying for the fridge because it's on 0% credit, but I needn't have given the money to Currys until I actually wanted the fridge. What's the point? 

I think the only benefit of paying upfront is if you have a 0% purchase card where the purchases must be made in the first (say) 90 days. Then this slow stooze would work nicely for the rest of the years payments.
However, I agree that there's no point to this if your 0% purchase card allows payments the whole time. You might as well just pay the £550 every month on your credit card and put the money into savings - no need to do it upfront.

s71hj

jim1999 said:

I figured out a few options over recent years, but I think all of them have been closed down now.  Not aware of anything that really generates a reasonable amount quickly with no risk at the moment.

Yes. Back when I was originally doing this there was an I think "Egg Money" account whereby a "debt" would transfer from that to a 0% card even though there was no debt and it would appear as a credit with Egg Money which you could then move to a savings account. Having latterly come back in to this I was wondering if there is any equivalent but it would seem not!

NorwichMan

@s71hj The closest thing to that these days involves a Halifax Clarity credit card and current account. I've not done this myself but it's often talked about. I'll describe the general idea below as I understand it, but DYOR if you want to actually try this.
 
As well as the clarity card you also need a separate (not LBG) and decent 0% (ideally fee free) balance transfer credit card.

Most people with clarity cards are able to make a "money transfer" to their current account at a relatively low interest rate. If you do that and at the same time initiate a balance transfer for the same amount to the other card then you can effectively create a large balance on the balance transfer card with the cash in your Halifax current account. The idea is that the balance transfer will return the clarity balance to zero.

Depending on timings you might get a day or two interest charges on the clarity card before the balance transfer clears, which would be a few pounds at most.

s71hj

NorwichMan said:

@s71hj The closest thing to that these days involves a Halifax Clarity credit card and current account. I've not done this myself but it's often talked about. I'll describe the general idea below as I understand it, but DYOR if you want to actually try this.
 
As well as the clarity card you also need a separate (not LBG) and decent 0% (ideally fee free) balance transfer credit card.

Most people with clarity cards are able to make a "money transfer" to their current account at a relatively low interest rate. If you do that and at the same time initiate a balance transfer for the same amount to the other card then you can effectively create a large balance on the balance transfer card with the cash in your Halifax current account. The idea is that the balance transfer will return the clarity balance to zero.

Depending on timings you might get a day or two interest charges on the clarity card before the balance transfer clears, which would be a few pounds at most.

That's great thanks. Unfortunately my Clarity card only has a credit limit of 1000 so I'd need to do a series of transfer,  money transfer,  transfer, money transfers to achieve the kind of 5 or 6000 credit limits I get offered,  but may still be worth it. Sorry to be dense, but I don't know what LBG means 🙂

born_again

s71hj said:

That's great thanks. Unfortunately my Clarity card only has a credit limit of 1000 so I'd need to do a series of transfer,  money transfer,  transfer, money transfers to achieve the kind of 5 or 6000 credit limits I get offered,  but may still be worth it. Sorry to be dense, but I don't know what LBG means 🙂

LBG Lloyds Banking Group.

If you only have a £1k limit, then you will need to pay it back before using it again... Not forgetting that you will have a charge for doing this. 5% on current offers I have. So that will wipe out any interest gained.

s71hj

Mine is 6.9% interest rate but no fee so if the timing was right I guess it would be a limited amount based on daily interest. I have a option to apply to increase the credit limit, so I may choose to do this.
Every day on here I learn a new acronym !