Big saver......

sleep_loser

Our biggest speding is normally on travel or home purchases including food, so I had about 5 credit cards all with balances coming in at nearly 20k so heres what I did.

1. Applied for loan to clear 12k over 3 years at a good rate, which let me clear and close 3 cards making my chances of other card deal acceptances greater.
2. Waited 1 month then applied for an American Express Platinum Credit Card, and and when accepted added my partner to it so our spend was more than 7.5k which is required for 2% cashback deal, and also kept my barclaycard as it has a less than 2k limit but thought it was worth keeping a backup VISA card.
3. Applied for 9months 0% BT's with Egg got it, and moved existing 8k+1k overdraft to it (as egg does superBT's) and closed 4th card. Which if you think about it means I get 14 months out of 17 at 0% on 9k when including my anniversary deal (remember to BT off and then back on when they use interest bearing months as it won't go straight to 0% when you hit your anniversary as I first thought).
4. Use my AMEX everywhere and only a small amount of places don't take it, so I make 2% back on everything I buy with that including food and petrol and socialising, and have my Visa as backup for smaller items. Even boots take it now so I'm told or are about to.

I reckon I've saved literally thousands in 1 year which I usually squandered every year for about 5 of those.

thanks Martin very much you've changed my life.

Paul