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The valley of death - seek advice on 0% spending cards stoozing, offers drying up, what to do next?
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I have a 0% lloyds CC and the promotion runs out in a month with about £8k of debt. I have always been able to get 0% zero fee balance transfer CC offers. These seem to have dried up. Is the best option to pay it off and wait for 0% purchases no fee offers? Or I could go for a 0% BTCC offer for 34 months with a 3% fee. I`m not sure if their is enough gain in this - paying £240 fee immediately and hoping £8K in high interest savings accounts and regular savers over 34 months will pay much more than the initial £240 fee taking into account that a minimum amount will have to be paid off every month?
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3% fee to borrow some money for nearly three years will be costing you a little over 1% pa. Surely you can find a savings account that will make it worthwhile.
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£4k in a Santander Edge saver (you can have 2, don't activate the Edge account fee) paying 6% is £480 a year, so 3 years with £480 vs paying it off… No brainer
Sam Vimes' Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness:
People are rich because they spend less money. A poor man buys $10 boots that last a season or two before he's walking in wet shoes and has to buy another pair. A rich man buys $50 boots that are made better and give him 10 years of dry feet. The poor man has spent $100 over those 10 years and still has wet feet.
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Just to clarify, I can get decent b/t offers on new cards, just not on existing cards after initial offer ends. So I just either shift debt onto new card or pay off, then cancel card in most situations. 3% for 34 months is decent. Is that with Lloyd's? As their min payment is 2.5% which eats into your stooze pot compared to say virgin or tesco who have 1% min payments
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Since you're hitting the wall with 0% offers, consider whether your offset mortgage is still giving you the best return. With current savings rates, you might find instant access accounts or fixed-term savings beating your mortgage rate, making the stoozing less worthwhile anyway. Also worth checking if any of your existing lenders might offer balance transfer deals to their existing customers - sometimes these don't show up on comparison sites but can buy you extra time.
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OP said in January they were looking at their existing card offers
You can still get decent offers on interest e.g. the Edge account, Chase boosted savings etc which may benefit them, they may just need to adjust their approach and look longer term BT offers and bit the bullet on fees
Sam Vimes' Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness:
People are rich because they spend less money. A poor man buys $10 boots that last a season or two before he's walking in wet shoes and has to buy another pair. A rich man buys $50 boots that are made better and give him 10 years of dry feet. The poor man has spent $100 over those 10 years and still has wet feet.
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Barclaycard just fired me a new offer, I already have a stoozed balance with them and will pass this time. 2.9% fee until Feb 2028, so there's a quid in it, which is more than I can say for 5% fee 12 months free offered to me by MBNA.
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I was just checking mine and noticed that they are doing me an offer of 6 months on 0% fee so clearly they do sometimes give existing customer deals, I thought it was to November 2027 for the normal fee, just checked again and noticed it was fee free. There would be no real reason not to use it to extend some others except for having 1 on another card ending also 1st November and others run to around Oct/Nov next year but nice of them to think of me :)
Sam Vimes' Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness:
People are rich because they spend less money. A poor man buys $10 boots that last a season or two before he's walking in wet shoes and has to buy another pair. A rich man buys $50 boots that are made better and give him 10 years of dry feet. The poor man has spent $100 over those 10 years and still has wet feet.
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I'm looking for some advice. I've used 0% purchase for a while and always paid off at the end, and closed the cards. But reading this I realise that is not the best way to maximise free money - there's 0% fee BT cards I could get. I've got a 0% purchase card (applied in Nov 25) which will probably do me for the next 18months for spending. I've got 2 purchase cards ending, one in a month and one in August. Soft checks show I can get Santander and Virgin 1 yr BT 0% fee cards. One is probably enough to cover the ending cards, but both would give some leeway if I need more 0% credit, and keep percentage use lower. So do I apply just for Santander and wait a bit (how long) and apply for Virgin; or do I apply for both now? Also should I close down old cards or keep them open? Thanks for any advice.
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Personally I just close the card once the offer has ended. Be careful with santander as they have a card that has a monthly fee (its the only one I get offered via the likes of clearscore). Their non fee one, if I go direct to bank, they ask how many credit cards I have then invariably get computer says no.
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