help and advice needed please!!

inespo

Hi there,

i have the following debts:

Virgin Credit Card - balance = £3900,00 - limit = £4000
Capital One Credit Card - balance = £991,00 - limit = £1000
Barclay Card - balance = £470 - limit = £500

i am paying off huge debts on all three cards and have a rubbish credit rating. i recently applied for a natwest card in order to get 0% interest and hoped to be able to start paying everything off - but was turned down...

really not sure where to turn...the barclaycard is ok interest wise but the capital one and virgin are costing me far too much in interest that i NEED to use to pay off the debt and not make things worse!!

i am paying about £125 interest per month on the Virgin card for instance!!

any help and advice on how to shift this debt gratefuly received...the website is awesome but this whole balance transfer issue seems geared up for people with good ratings!!!

what about us people with poor ratings...

thanks in advance...

Keeping_Positive

Hello

More experienced people will be along soon Im sure but I firs would recommend a full SOA (statement of affairs) that details your income and expences including the APR rates. This will help us see if there is anything you can save on to throw more money at the debt.

The second thing is to look at this http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx which will help you see what card to tackle first.

Good luck

inespo

thanks for the response Wendy - very good of you to take the time to not only read my post but also to respond.

i know that compared with most people on here i do not have that much debt...however, it is still debt and when you are throwing away £160+ interest only per month it is very depressing.

i can only imagine what i would be able to do with that cash if it were being saved rather than given to the card companies - is it just me or is it awful that i am good for paying this back if i had a good % interest rate and not an awful one that the card companies are dragging me by the heels over...

but, alas, turned down for credit and have no choice but to keep my head down and keep paying - but at the end of the day it is awful to have to pay so much for so little!!!]]

thanks again for your thoughts and assistance...

poorandindenial

Without seeing your interest rates it is difficult to know whether you are on a high rate or not.

Right, first things first, you are where you are, there is no point kicking yourself over the amount of interest you are paying if you can't reduce it.

Wendy is right, if you want to pay this off you need to throw money at it. Post up an SOA and peoplle on here will hep you find money you never knew you had, that way you will pay off sooner and pay less interest.

The snowball calculator is a real eye opener too and well worth doing, as is a spending diary which helps you identify all the rubbish you spend on of a month because you log every last penny that you spend and what you spend it on.

Sadly there is no silver bullet, Good luck with getting it sorted

Keeping_Positive

Spending diary link http://www.spendingdiary.com/.

It is a pain when you think of all the interest but just use that anger/annoyance to get a game plan through here of how you are going to get rid asap. How about getting your credit rting through the three agencies to see how weak it is? There may be deals you can get.

lindens

If you can post up the APR's for all cards and the minimum payment amount, along with an SOA, we can help.
I think the trick here is make minimum payments only on the lower APR's and as much as you can above minimum payment on high interest ones. Can you sell stuff on ebay and throw that money at the cards? Maybe get a second income for a while.
Look forward to seeing your SOA and lots more help will come along.

inespo

hi thanks for all help so far - i'm going to upload an SOA tonight.

i have just looked at the spending diary and it looks brilliant...amazing to see how much is spent...i thought i was quite careful...having entered everything i can remember since monday it seems that i am overspending...

e-bay is a great idea too...i've loads of stuff that i could probably put on there that i never use...thanks for all the great advice so far!!