Balance transfer

magpies79

So quick question say you have £8000 available for a balance transfer 0% for 14 months and have £1,800 and 1,100 on another 2 cards at 29% apr each.

if I was to transfer these 2 cards to the 0% I can at this moment maybe more after Xmas pay £120 a month so that wouldn’t clear the 0% in time so should I only transfer what I can clear in time i plan to close these 2 cards once cleared or transferred 

New_in_the_fens

You should clear the balances in full so the total debt is on 0% for the 14 months. 

If you don’t manage to pay off the full amount, whatever is left at the end of the 14 months should be moved to another 0% offer if you have one. 

There is no point leaving any of the balances on 29% if you can put them all on 0%. 

magpies79

Thanks for the Reply so these 2 cards are my last cards with interest accruing on them as I've not been able to clear the balances.

 I currently have 2 long term 0% Halifax and hsbc cards that are being paid monthly and will be cleared in time before the 0% runs out.
but while I’m paying that can’t really free up more funds to pay off this one in time.

with this potentially new 0% 14 month should I transfer both balances pay the £120 that I can do it won’t clear the full balance in time but I’ll knock off a big chuck at least?
sorry to waffle on.

feynman33

Like half your £120 will be going on interest for 14 months, dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good

magpies79

I think that’s it makes sense and that puts everything I owe onto 0% although I thought as reading up I have just seen that Zable the card I have with 1,200 on it doesn’t allow the balance to be transferred to another card so that’s out of the window annoying 

feynman33

If you can money transfer instead with your new card you can pay it that way, otherwise you should be looking at paying the minimum on your 0% cards and hitting the £1200 balance as hard as possible...

magpies79

Unfortunately this card doesn’t offer that.
so have I been going about this the wrong way….
i have 2 0% cards paying £150 a month on each this will clear the balance before the offer ends the minimum payments on the card is £89 and £91.

I didn’t want to leave myself with to much to do and to clear them as fast as possible then was going to overpay on the other 2 cards once that was freed up

Altior

Potentially, if you can get a 0% purchases card, you can put everyday spending on that, and use the free funds to pay off the 1200 card.

hugheskevi

There usually isn't any reason to pay anything more than the minimum on a 0% interest card, better to put the money into an easy-access savings account* with a decent interest rate and use it to pay cards off as offers expire, if you can't shift a remaining balance to another 0% card and continue to benefit from interest.

The obvious exceptions would be if you do not think you would trust yourself with access to an account holding a decent amount of cash, or if it would affect benefit entitlement.

*or use Regular Savers if you really want to maximise interest, but that takes a bit more effort and management of durations and offer expiry dates

Altior

It's the exit strategy. If you run out of road on a 0%, have no free funds and no access to new 0% deals or transfers, that is very tricky. Risks ending up paying the extortionate full interest rate on the card (which is what the providers hope to achieve). 

ManyWays

Zable has to be your top priority to clear as it is likely to be much your highest rate. Shuffle as much of the other onto 0% card and pay the minimum to those to take most advantage of this letting you overpay Zable. When that is clear, overpay the next card still charging you interest.