All in one basket?

Benthosboy

Hello all.

I've got three cc debts at the moment:

Halifax: £1016.44 @ 20.9% APR. BL of £8050
TSB: £2300.24 @26.5% APR. BL of £10000
Capitol One: £4409.33 @21.83% APR

As I've also got the remainder of a loan for my motorhome left to pay, I went to the Halifax today to see about a personal loan. The application wouldn't go through and the nice lady thinks that, due to my seperating from the wife and having to open new accounts and re-negotiate my loan, too many credit searches have been done. In a bid to help me, (call it pity ), she's managed to get me a 6 month 0% balance transfer on my Halifax cc and advised me to shift the TSB debt onto it.

Question: would it be a good idea to move all the debt onto the Halifax, bearing in mind that the Capital card is in my wife's name but is a joint debt and it has to be closed asap anyway?

Thanks all.

Martyn.

CannyJock

Benthosboy wrote: »

Hello all.

I've got three cc debts at the moment:

Halifax: £1016.44 @ 20.9% APR. BL of £8050
TSB: £2300.24 @26.5% APR. BL of £10000
Capitol One: £4409.33 @21.83% APR

As I've also got the remainder of a loan for my motorhome left to pay, I went to the Halifax today to see about a personal loan. The application wouldn't go through and the nice lady thinks that, due to my seperating from the wife and having to open new accounts and re-negotiate my loan, too many credit searches have been done. In a bid to help me, (call it pity ), she's managed to get me a 6 month 0% balance transfer on my Halifax cc and advised me to shift the TSB debt onto it.

Question: would it be a good idea to move all the debt onto the Halifax, bearing in mind that the Capital card is in my wife's name but is a joint debt and it has to be closed asap anyway?

Thanks all.

Martyn.

Does the 0% balance transfer apply to your existing balance? If not, transfer it onto your TSB card (probably a 3% fee from TSB), then transfer the full TSB balance (including the transferred Halifax balance!) back onto your Halifax so it's all on at 0% (another 3% fee, but still worthwhile). To deal with interest yet charged on your cards, might be worth tranferring a bit extra to put your cards slightly in credit. If you cancel the TSB card once you've had the final "credit balance" refunded, should clear up some credit for a future 0% deal over a proper term like 15 months to transfer your Halifax balance onto when it's near the end of the 0% period.

Capital Card is a trickier one. You could do, and then sue your wife for half of the amount with interest or do your best to get half the money off her to clear the debt and transfer the full amount to your 0% card.

Benthosboy

CannyJock wrote: »

Does the 0% balance transfer apply to your existing balance? If not, transfer it onto your TSB card (probably a 3% fee from TSB), then transfer the full TSB balance (including the transferred Halifax balance!) back onto your Halifax so it's all on at 0% (another 3% fee, but still worthwhile). To deal with interest yet charged on your cards, might be worth tranferring a bit extra to put your cards slightly in credit. If you cancel the TSB card once you've had the final "credit balance" refunded, should clear up some credit for a future 0% deal over a proper term like 15 months to transfer your Halifax balance onto when it's near the end of the 0% period.

Capital Card is a trickier one. You could do, and then sue your wife for half of the amount with interest or do your best to get half the money off her to clear the debt and transfer the full amount to your 0% card.

Sorry. not very clear with my OP.

The 0% balance transfer will apply to my existing balance.
The balance on the Capital cc is my half of the original debt. The wife has paid half already and once I cough up my half, the account will be closed. And if she doesn't, it's in her name anyway

Martyn.

neverdespairgirl

Hi Martyn,

you are paying some horrible APRs there! Have you tried the Debt Free Wannabe board, which is great?

Benthosboy

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Hi Martyn,

you are paying some horrible APRs there! Have you tried the Debt Free Wannabe board, which is great?

Yes thanks, I'm on there as much as poss looking for good info.

The big problem I'm dealing with now is that the wife has recently decided to leave me after 16 years and as she did all the accounts, I had no idea things were so bad. I only really discovered everything when I was looking through our filing system for all my paperwork. Even that was in a mess! Kick my a**e if you wish, but I basically left her to it and whenever I asked how we were doing, all she said was: "everything is okay".

There was no particular reason for me not being involved, she seemed happy to take responsibility for it all and I was happy to let her. As a result of the mess I'm now in, my feelings of stupidity have no limits. In fact, doesn't come close!!

I'm now getting slowly back on top of it all and feel like I know what's happening. Sad thing is, before I got married, I knew where every penny went :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Martyn.

CannyJock

Benthosboy wrote: »

Sorry. not very clear with my OP.

The 0% balance transfer will apply to my existing balance.
The balance on the Capital cc is my half of the original debt. The wife has paid half already and once I cough up my half, the account will be closed. And if she doesn't, it's in her name anyway

Martyn.

If it's all your debt and the 0% will apply to the existing balance then definitely put it all onto that card and cancel the other ones.

Assuming there's a 3% fee for the 2 balance transfer amounts, that'll bring your balance up to £ 7,927.30 of £ 8,050. That's 98% of your credit limit - as standard you can only balance transfer up to 95% of your credit limit so you might need to ask them them to up your limit to £ 8,400. Worth checking when you call them to do the balance transfers.

Even in the short term, you'll still save money doing this and it'll put all your debt in one place at 0%. Cancel the other cards, set up a direct debit to repay the minimum and then make addtional payments as you're able to. Put a note in your diary in 4 months time to look for a new 0% balance transfer card to move the balance to.

Hopefully you've found the right place to get a good insight into the whole finance thing - certainly a few of us around with an opinion or two

neverdespairgirl

Very best of luck in sorting it all out.