Managing Credit Card debt whilst on Universal Credit

Unicorn79

Asking for a friend with this one..

She has 2 x credit cards with high interest - 33% and 26% retrospectively.  Amounts are around £2K total.

Ordinarily, she would use a 0% card, but due to now being on a low income and claiming UC as her main income, she is not entitled to set up a new card/transfer balance.

What advice can I give her?  The interest she is paying is so high, she pays off aroudn £100 a month so has being paying them off, but struggling with the balance.

fatbelly

It's difficult to manage any debt while on UC.

The first thing to do is to see if she is getting everything she can

https://benefits-calculator.turn2us.org.uk/

Then see if she can get a little extra coming in, e.g..

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/boost-your-income

Meeting the minimum payments on that should need £60 per month so she's actually doing well.

Whether she can switch to lower interest would mean a soft search on

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/eligibility/credit-cards/search/

Worth checking she doesn't have a positive balance with electricity, water, gas. Best to run at a slight lag with them as they don't charge interest

Will try to get this moved to the main board for more views