What's My Best Option To Pay For Kitchen - Credit Card Or Loan

KELLY1_2

Help, I am buying a new kitchen in the next couple of days and need some advice. We don't have the money to pay up front so we were going to get a bank loan. Would we be better off using a credit card to pay for it (I've never had one and don't know what the deals are). It's going to cost about £5000 and we've already got an overdraft of £2000 but no other debts.

fatboyonadiet

Welcome to the boards, best thing would have been to get some credit cards on 0% and shuffle them everytime they run out but if the kitchen is due in a few days you don't have much time, mind you, you don't have much time to get a loan either, have your ordered it? Or are thinking about it? If the latter apply for a Virgin credit card ASAP 0% for 9 months, no balance transfer fees and will let you BT to a bank account.

jen_jen_2

neither, save up, its cheaper and less hassle in the long run

mrcow

Grrr.....just lost my first post to you.

We did exactly as above. Applied for a Virgin card 0% for 9 months, transferred the balance to our bank and then paid for the kitchen & fitting. After the 9 months were up, we replaced the deal with Halifax 0% for a further 9 months until it was all paid off.

BTW, unless your overdraft is free (ie. 0% which I doubt ), you do realise that you are probably paying through the nose for it. When I had a similar size overdraft, I was paying about £9 per month in interest alone :eek: No thanks!

If you're in a similar position, you'd be wise to look at alternatives to the overdraft, maybe also getting the debt onto a 0% card? and then working out a reasonable budget to get the debt down?

Take a look at Marton's article on overdrafts: here

Edit (or even Martin's article!)

Good luck.

Malestrom

If you need the money quickly then it will have to be a loan as you'll never get a CC in time, quickest CC application turnaround time is 14-21 days I think. Also, if the loan APR is cheaper than the overdraft then you might be wise to borrow more and pay off the overdraft, you'll also need to include any monthly charges for the overdraft in deciding if this is an option.

Word of advice, the loans offered by kitchen companies or DIY sheds like B&Q are usually at very high interest rates, so beware. Sometimes you can get 0% interest deals though so it would be wise to check. Also, sometimes you can get a loan from your mortgage company at the same rate as your mortgage for home improvements. This is NOT a remortgage, it is a loan with a fixed repayment term depending on how much a month you can afford to pay. I know that my mortgage company do this although the loan is actually through MBNA.

Xbigman

Is there any reason you need a kitchen urgently? If this is an emergency purchase then ok take out a loan but try to have some cash saved up for future emergencies.
If its not an emergency purchase then don't do it, save up instead. You already have an overdraft so try to avoid more debt.
Regards




X

ceegee

I agree with jen-jen and xbigman....do neither. If you haven't got the money for it then don't do it. You already have a £2000 overdraft.....you will be increasing your debt to £7000 plus interest. Concentrate on getting rid of your overdraft. If I can live with my falling apart kitchen, then I'd bet you can live with yours. What exactly is wrong with it?

You really ought to be trying to reduce your debt rather than looking for advice on the best way to increase it. :eek:

Louise20000

Hi there,

Please take heed from those of us in debt (and not in debt) - save up for it! Once I am out of debt if I ever want/need anything again it will be paid for with cash.

margaretclare

Hi

We had our kitchen done a few years ago now. We paid for some of the work - tiling walls, lighting etc but the fitting of the actual kitchen was from Magnet, and they arranged a loan for us. We could have paid it off over 10 years but instead we paid it off over 2 1/2 years.

Aunty Margaret