Is this a good idea?

tomstickland

What are the annual rates on each of your loans?

What rates can you get on another loan?

I used a Cahoot flexible loan because it was a very good rate, lower than banks were offering their staff at the time.

If you can get one new loan with a better rate then it makes sense to move your highest rate loans to that.

If you can't then shift as much as possible to the lowest rate loan you have and pay off the highest rate loan as quickly as possible.

One thing to remember - to pay back debt you have to be paying money it. (not being sarcastic, but every £1 of debt needs paying off).

Dantastico

I must seem to be asking such stupid questions, sorry!

My one and only bank loan is with Barclays and is at an annual rate of 14.9%.

I have just checked Cahoot flexible loans and I can get one for the total amount of my Barclay loan (well a quote anyway) for 6.9%. This would mean my loan payments (over the same period of time) would be £123.56 p/m instead of £136.88 p/m. Which means that I should do this as well.

God, I wish I could think for myself sometimes rather than hassle all of you people!

tomstickland

No, I just didn't read your post properly!

Yes, move as much as possinble to the lowest rate.

What's the rates on the cards (or are they zero)?

Dantastico

My statemants read:-

Egg
MERCHANDISE INTEREST AT 1.240 PER MONTH

Barclaycard
Interest on cash balance (1.991%)
Interest on standard balance (1.941%)

Is it as simple as to times by 12 for an annual rate? If so:-

Egg = 14.9%
Barclaycard = 23.9% & 23.3%

johannamse

Well done Dan...you are learning fast. Stick around here and you will get lots of support. Another word of advice, learning all this new stuff you will suddenly be eager to change EVERYTHING. Just take a deep breath and think everything through carefully. You are exactly right with your credit card list. Well done. You can transfer a loan to a credit card. I would make one application to a 0% card, see what limit you get, then come back on here and well work out where to go next. WELL DONE!

Dantastico

Ok, thanks to everyone so far (espescially nelly and johannamse), and just to let you all know, I have just applied for my Natwest credit card and am supposed to receive a letter within 10 days to tell me whether I've been successful or not, so fingers crossed.

Johannamse, you are right that it does make me want to do other things, in particular, change my bank account, but I'll have to look into that later. I'm assuming the best way is to wait until all of my CC and loan things are sorted out otherwise I guess that could confuse applications and things. I don't really want to make things go wrong now that I've taken this step forward!

angelatgraceland

Congratuations Dantastico for actually doing something to sort it all out. Sounds good advice to me-what Ive read-I think Id do the same-just thought Id say GOOD LUCK! :beer:

Dantastico

Thanks for your support angelatgraceland (if that is your real name ). Anyway, I'll keep you all updated when things start to happen. I'm sure I'll be after some more advice soon.

Oh, and thanks for the beer! Cheers :beer: