Minimum payments

Ricardo74

Until last year I could only manage to pay the minimum payment each month on my credit cards. However, things improved once I started to transfer balances and manage my money etc and I can now pay more than the minimum. On my Lloyds TSB card I pay a set £80 each month by direct debit, most of this is reducing my balance as the offer was 5% for the life of the balance.
Tesco refused to let me set an overpayment direct debit and advised me to make an additional counter payment each month.

My monthly debit to Citi Cards has recently dropped from £46 per month to approx £28. I compared November's and February's statements last night and noticed that the monthly minimum has dropped from 3% to 2.25%.
I was bloody furious. I will be debt free by the end of this year after 5 miserbale years of massive unsecured debt and they go and do this.

How can I insist that they allow me to set a fixed sum like Lloyds TSB, unlike Tesco who would prefer me to prolong the misery of debt?
I intend to transfer the Citi and Tesco cards balances in March, so ideally it will be the next card that I insist that they do this.

spaceman99

I hace a smiliar problem with Argos. We bought a sofa on a 2 year interest free deal - only snag was you had to take the Argos card out.

They will not let you set up a direct debit for a fixed amout, only the minimum payment. So, unless you ring up every month to make an additional payment, you will certianly go way past your interest free period and on to their extorcianate interest rate.

CLAPTON

you should pay the minimum on each card except the one with the highest APR... on that one pay as much as possible. This way you pay the least interest and pay the debt off the quickest.

Why dont you simply make an extra payment via your bank account to the CC either at the bank or via online services?

Ricardo74

Thanks Clapton, I guess I have little choice but to do that. It's just that I've tried this in the past, I had £20 or so left at the end of a month's budget and thought I'd top up my monthly payment. All this did was reduce the following month's debit by £20 and not actually reduce the amount owed. So in a two statements period I simply paid what I would have done anyway.

I am so close to paying eveything off and had hoped I could compel my lenders to do as I ask. I just think it's odd that one of my credit card companies agreed the other refused.
Any tips?

mrsmortenharket

set up a standing order instead. You can choose the amount.

Lisa