£5000 on credit card

blondeemma82

Hi, First time posting.
I currently owe about £5000 on credit cards. Have a car loan for roughly £2500 which i am 1 year out of three of repaying and live permanently in my £1500 overdraft (from being a student).
I am making all repayments and havenet missed one or struggling, but I would like see if anyone has any advice oevr how i could possibly pay off quicker without making more in repayments each month!
I also dont class myself as being in trouble as i am making repayments - am i just kidding myself!????

CLAPTON

basically
you can pay the debt more quickly if you

a. pay more each month (overtime, parttime job?, reduce spending )

b. pay as much as possible on the most expensive debt and as little as possible to the cheaper debts

c. shift expensive (high apr ) debt to lower apr debt.

ShelfStacker_3

Balance transfer the cards to a 0% card (or possibly 0% cards). You'll pay less in interest that way and therefore pay off the cards quicker... I'm sure a more knowledgeable user could help with the fine details

CannyJock

blondeemma82 wrote: »

Hi, First time posting.
I currently owe about £5000 on credit cards. Have a car loan for roughly £2500 which i am 1 year out of three of repaying and live permanently in my £1500 overdraft (from being a student).
I am making all repayments and havenet missed one or struggling, but I would like see if anyone has any advice oevr how i could possibly pay off quicker without making more in repayments each month!
I also dont class myself as being in trouble as i am making repayments - am i just kidding myself!????

Nope, should be a solution. If you've not missed any payments then your credit rating should be intact.

First thing you need to do is look at why you're permanently in overdraft, do the budget workout in the articles and it'll help you understand what's happening.

As far as refinancing your credit, I'd suggest the Virgin Money 0% balance transfer option. You can transfer money directly into your current account so it will deal with the overdraft and the associated interest and charges. It can also be used to clear your car loan - ask them for a settlement figure and compare this to the amount you would otherwise repay if you let it run to the end of the term. You can also clear your existing credit card debt if you get a high enough credit limit.

You can buy yourself some breathing time maybe to sort things out. If you don't get the credit limit you want, deal with the highest % debt first. The Virgin Money has added advantage that first payment is 3%, 2nd to 15th payment is £ 25. Oh yeah, and don't ever spend money on the card, use it for balance transfer then put it in a drawer and be sure to set up a direct debit to repay the minimum while it's on the 0% period.

If you need a card to spend money on, look at the 0% purchase card options.