I will have two credit card balances with debt left come February, what should I do?

Platinumseahorse

Hello, 

I am on a debt free journey and I'm feeling very positive with one of my credit cards set to be paid off by the start of 2026. 

I will then have one card with approximately £900 (a balance transfer with the 0% period ending in March 2026) and another card with £1242 (with a 0% period that ends in June 2027). 

I was wondering whether it would be best to combine the two and put it on a balance transfer card with a long 0% period, or do I shift the £900 card to a balance transfer card first, clear that, and then focus on the third and final card with a balance of £1242. 

Any help would be appreciated, and while I ended up in debt due to flatmate issues amongst other things, I am feeling really positive about my debt free journey. 

Brie

Sounds like you're doing a good job of managing the debt and getting to a better place with your budget.  

So what you are suggesting is sometimes call snowballing.  Basically you see how much money you have available to stick on the debts and then pay the minimum on the one with the longer end date (2027) and sufficient on the 2026 one to clear it before the March end date.  Prime objective is to not pay them any interest.  And then because you've proved that you can spare the money for the two debts keep paying that amount on to the only one that is left to ensure it is sorted before June 2027 rolls around.  Once everything is paid off then continue to pay that money to yourself by putting it into a regular savings account or similar.  

Don't do another BT because if nothing else you'll incur a fee doing so.  Why give away money if you don't have to??

Best of luck with your journey!!!

Spendless

Are you able to clear the £900 debt on Credit card 1 before the 0% deal runs out at the end of March 2026? Even if this means just paying the minimum on the higher debt on credit card 2 where you owe £1242 on whilst CC1 is paid fully off. If you are in that position then no don't move it at all to another card.

If the £900 is not going to be cleared in time then you will need to make a decision about whether to transfer to another 0% and accept the transfer fee or keep it on the current card and accept you're paying interest until it's gone. Which to do will depend on how much is left on it at the end of March and which will cost you less.

Once a decision has been made about CC1, look to clear CC2 within the time frame of that 0% deal running out.

When we were paying off CC debt, we divided what was owing by the number of months till the 0% BT deal ran out. Once we had that figure we then paid the minimum off the card each month, rounded up to a fixed monthly sum (only because we'd once been stung before by not noticing that a previous provider used a % as a min payment which of course came down each month as the balance decreased and we'd not realised and the 0% term ended with us still  owing). The rest we then put into a high interest account, so we were making money along the way that we then used for emergency spends or put towards debt. Eg if worked out that we needed to pay £700 per month to clear our debt by the time the  0% period stopped we might have paid £100 as a min monthly payment whilst £600 went into a dedicated high interest savings account. You do have to be disciplined enough not to touch it as it is building to pay debt back not as a spending account. 

Organgrinder

Totally agree with the above strategies unless you can give yourself a bit of breathing space with another 0% transfer.

Virgin have a no fee BT card currently. Duration 13 months. So if you qualify it gives you longer to pay cc1 off.

Either way as I'm sure you know, the key is to be disciplined and set your payments to both cards so that they are paid off by the end dates of the offers.