Lightbulb moment today

Mad_old_tory

Glad to hear you're beginning to get on top of things Jules. I would definitely echo the spending diary comments, I really need to knuckle down and do a proper one from now on as my spending can be a bit erratic - £40 one week, £80 another.

skint_spice

Hi Jules, well done for getting started. I used to have a lot of "fridge furniture" too but find meal planning for the week before shopping has eliminated the problem. I desperately need to defrost the freezer and it's taken a couple of months to get to the empty stage - have had a really cheap time with the shopping though!
I drive about a 60 mile round trip to work but my petrol bill is no where near as much as your diesel bill - are you doing a lot of extra trips apart from work that could be avoided?
If you have been refused new credit cards I'd work on reducing the balance on the existing ones for a few months while reducing the limits and try again.
It does get easier though and now I'm finding it hard to spend money! there is light at the end of the tunnel...

Jules2000_2

Hi Skint Spice, my round trip is just over 50 miles. I do go to visit my parents approx 2 or 3 times per month and that's a round trip of approx 60 miles each time. The petrol stations I go near charge between 108.9p and 110.9p per litre for diesel. I used to shop at Tesco when they offered 5p off per litre when you spent over £50 but I thought they were expensive compared to Asda so didn't really save much overall, plus Tesco is quite a bit out of my way.

I'm still trying to work out the best way to deal with my credit cards - all this talk of shuffling about confuses me! I'll certainly ring Sainsbury's when they are open to see if they'll give me the option of a life balance transfer 'thingy'. I've just tried to call them but they're closed. I'll try again tomorrow or on Monday. Can I repeat what I'm supposed to be doing (just so I can get it straight in my head) ...

1. Ring Sainsburys to ask if they will give me a cheaper rate for a balance transfer from another card thing.
2. If they say yes, transfer the Sainsburys balance of £1,676 to my Halifax card (at a rate of 19.9%)
3. Move as much of the Marbles balance as I can to Sainsburys (as I understand it you can only transfer 95% of available credit and there is a 3% fee for moving.
4. Pay off the remainder of the Marbles balance as quickly as I can and then close the account.

Is that right?

One thing that confuses me is I'm not sure at what point it goes from being a good deal to a bad deal ie if Sainsburys say yes at 19.9% but also want to charge me a 3% fee, presumably I'm not better off swapping. if I were lucky enough to be given a deal by Sainsburys can anyone tell me when I should say no ie 20% or more plus 3%. If they say 3.9% like the halifax then I'll snap their hands off (but I'm NEVER that lucky!). No doubt I'll get to the bottom of it eventually.

Anyway to change subject totally, I ventured to a local 'farm' shop today and bought a huge sack of potatoes for £4 instead of the usual 4 jacket spuds for £1.49 at the supermarket so I'll have saved money there. It wasn't really a farm shop, it was more like Netto's supermarket but in a bid shed, so for a (soon to be ex-) food snob like me that was a real experience. I've never heard of half of the makes of tinned food but we mainly went for the fresh stuff. I was a bit disappointed - I got some spuds but the rest looked a bit crappy and not very fresh so I'm going to go looking for a greengrocer instead next week. There used to be loads of local shops when I was young but these days the supermarkets grab all the trade and people like me, who usually only shop at places like Asda, only make it harder for smaller shops to survive.

I'm starting to waffle on again, sorry.

On a brighter note, got loads of stuff listed on ebay so I'll see if I can sell anything. I've seen on other threads that people list on Amazon and Play - is that just books and DVDs or do people list other things? I once thought about trying Ebid or Tazbar but they didn't seem to get much traffic, although I think because of the hike in Ebay fees lately and various other issues sellers, maybe I ought to have a look at them again. Has anyone any experience of selling on these other sites?

Jules

Tiglet

Jules2000 wrote: »

I'm still trying to work out the best way to deal with my credit cards - all this talk of shuffling about confuses me! I'll certainly ring Sainsbury's when they are open to see if they'll give me the option of a life balance transfer 'thingy'. I've just tried to call them but they're closed. I'll try again tomorrow or on Monday. Can I repeat what I'm supposed to be doing (just so I can get it straight in my head) ...

1. Ring Sainsburys to ask if they will give me a cheaper rate for a balance transfer from another card thing.
2. If they say yes, transfer the Sainsburys balance of £1,676 to my Halifax card (at a rate of 19.9%)
3. Move as much of the Marbles balance as I can to Sainsburys (as I understand it you can only transfer 95% of available credit and there is a 3% fee for moving.
4. Pay off the remainder of the Marbles balance as quickly as I can and then close the account.

Is that right?

Yes - that's spot on. :beer:

Don't worry if it's confusing - this bit is covered in the "advanced" part of Martin's article. The point of transferring your Sainsbury's balance on to the Halifax card is to make room for more of the balance from the Marbles card (at the new low rate).

If you're limited to 95% of the available limit, I make that £8550, leaving £418 on the Marbles card. You might be able to transfer that to the remaining cards just to get rid of it. It probably won't save you anything (it may be slightly more expensive) but it will allow you to close the card sooner, which will help your credit rating for the future. (Alternatively, it might be worth asking Sainsbury's to increase your limit slightly so you can move the whole balance)

One thing that confuses me is I'm not sure at what point it goes from being a good deal to a bad deal ie if Sainsburys say yes at 19.9% but also want to charge me a 3% fee, presumably I'm not better off swapping. if I were lucky enough to be given a deal by Sainsburys can anyone tell me when I should say no ie 20% or more plus 3%. If they say 3.9% like the halifax then I'll snap their hands off (but I'm NEVER that lucky!). No doubt I'll get to the bottom of it eventually.

I know - I'm trying to work that out and it's not easy, is it? The 3% is added on at the beginning so you start off with 103% of your initial balance. Then you have to take into account how long the deal is for because if you only get six months that 3% is equivalent to just over 6% over a year.

I've tried to work it out and it seems that if you can get a rate of significantly better than 15%, then you should be better off after 6 months. 15% or more and I wouldn't bother. To keep it simple, I'd say that if you can get a rate of 12% or less for 6 months or more, then go for it.

Even if it doesn't turn out to be worthwhile to move the Marbles balance, I still think it's worth moving the Sainsbury's balance to the Halifax card (assuming they'll do that for the same 19.9%). You'll pay slightly more to begin with, but it will save money over time. Then at least you could close the Sainsbury's card.

Sorry this is so complicated - I hope it turns out to save you money in the end

Tustastic

Hi Jules2000, you sound as though you're getting really organised and you've had some great advice. I'm still fretting about the diesel bill though. What kind of vehicle do you drive? If it's a powerful beast, do you really need it just for your commuting and would it be worth changing it for something more economical?
All the best, from she who drives a 1 litre Kia Picanto - little darling.

Jules2000_2

I cannot thank everyone enough on this forum, if I hadn't joined I would never have known I could just ring up and negotiate my credit card rates. Reading all the other posts gave me confidence to call my credit card companies as normally I would have been too scared to ask but I feel I've got quite good at negotiating for someone of little experience!! In a few months time I'm going to see if I can get the Halifax to reduce their rate a bit more.

Anyway I've had a go at moving some money around :eek: . I'm bound to have cocked up somewhere but it's got to be better than what it was before.

I've transferred as much off my Marbles card as I can, £6,136 to my Sainsburys card at a life balance rate of 6.95% (with no fee:T ).

I've also transferred £1,950 to my Halifax card at a life balance rate of 6.95% with a 1% transfer fee.

It still leaves a balance of about £900 on the Marbles card but I'm hoping to get that paid off as soon as I possibly can and then close that account.

My spending diary is still going strong and I'm trying to cut down on my diesel bill. I didn't think I could cut this down but I never realised how many unnecessary trips I made until I was made aware of it. My aim is to chop £50 off my usual monthly total which will be a 20% saving if I can do it.

My ebaying is doing really well so fingers crossed I can use this to go towards my Marbles outstanding balance.

Thanks again everyone.

Jules

mhe

:T :T :T GO GIRL:T :T :T

Tiglet

Jules2000 wrote: »

Anyway I've had a go at moving some money around :eek: . I'm bound to have cocked up somewhere but it's got to be better than what it was before.

Looks good to me!:beer:

Good luck with the ebaying and the spending diary too.:j:T:j:T:j

Jules2000_2

Thanks for that

After I've paid off the Marbles card, which card should I tackle next? presumably my Egg card? Would I then be better off trying to clear some off my Halifax card to get to paying off balance at 19.9% asap? I realise the lower balance transfer gets paid off first. Any advice greatly appreciated (my head hurts !! )

1. Egg - Purchase balance of £1,718.91 apr 17.9%

2. Halifax - Purchase balance of £7,806.44 apr 19.9%
Balance transfer of £1,950 apr 6.95% + 1% fee
Balance transfer of £3,699.35 apr 3.9% + 3% fee
Total - £13,455

3. Sainsburys - Purchase balance of £1,676.71 apr 12.9%
Balance transfer of £6,136 apr 6.95%
Total - £7,812

Thanks again
Jules

poppy_f1

hiya and good luck
re the chinese, i've found that asda do some lovely chinese dishes on the counters and its normally a lot cheaper than what you would pay, few weeks back we got chinese chicken curry for £1 per portion and it was lovely