Reduce monthly repayments

path29

Hi All

I'm brand new to this forum, so forgive me if I'm asking silly questions.

In my infinite wisdom I've purchased a car and transferred the balance of the car from my bank account to my M&S Money 0% card. Something I didn't check beforehand though is that they require a minimum 3% monthy payment. Before I did the transfer to this card I had a balance of about £2000 on it that I was paying £150 a month towards (much more than 3%!!!). Now the monthly payments are going to be roughly about £300.

So, the question is - Is there anything I can do to bring the payments down or is there any other card out there that has a lower monthly payment rate?


Thanks

Pat

YorkshireBoy

Loads of cards doing 2% minimum payments, and MBNA (and MBNA sub-brands) have £5 minimum payments. However, when you say...

"I've purchased a car and transferred the balance of the car from my bank account to my M&S Money 0% card."

...do you mean you've taken a cash advance? :eek:

Rafter

2-2.5% is going to be the minimum on most cards (except for MBNA during their intro deals)

Just be careful that you are not paying off the car long after you have sold it or end up with a loan which is greater than the value of the car.

Only other way is to take out an unsecured loan and spread the payments over a longer period, but wouldn't recommend you take out any car loan for more than about 4 years (~2% repayment a month) otherwise you are likely to end up with a loan greater than the value of the car.

R.

path29

thanks for the info

it's not really a long term thing anyway, as the 0% rate is finished in january, so i'll be switching soon enough. Which leads me on... does anyone know what the minimum is on the Capital One '0% til 2007' card?

Cheers


Pat
___

YorkshireBoy

Cap One minimum payments are 3% again!!! BT fee is 2% uncapped

path29

aargh!!!!!

path29

from the mbna bunch i've had a virgin card, and an mbna platinum plus card... do you know if they have any other cards in their portfolio?

YorkshireBoy

path29 wrote:

from the mbna bunch i've had a virgin card, and an mbna platinum plus card... do you know if they have any other cards in their portfolio?

They've loads of cards in their portfolio, but only really a "safe" bet if your old cards have been properly closed down as plenty of reports on here about people who have been refused because they already held MBNA brand cards.

Check out these tables for BT deals with no fee...

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cg...122985312,39518,

http://www.stoozing.com/0fees.htm

Don't place any reliance on these though. Do your own research as deals change all the time.

Clariman

Hi path29

I don't know your financial situation, but what I have read on this thread is ringing a few alarm bells with me. You have bought a car costing in the region of £8,000 and paid for it with a 0% credit card. OK so far. However, you are seeking to find a card with a lower minimum payment - presumably because you are finding £300 per month a bit difficult to find. If you are finding £300 per month difficult to find, are you sure that you can afford to buy the car ? Even if you manage to find 0% cards to roll the debt over to, it is going to take you over 33 months to pay off the car and your existing debts .... and that assumes that you spend no more on your credit card in the future.

And what happens if you can't find another 0% card to roll the debt on to ? You will be hit with interest charges of anywhere between 10% and 20% (depending on your card's Ts & Cs).

As others have said, minimum payments are typically 2% to 3%, with the one exception being MBNA which is £5 per month. However paying £5 per month would mean that you would need to find 0% cards to rollover to for the next 167 years, because that is how long it would take to pay off your debts..... and that is without paying any interest on it !

I don't mean to give you a hard time. I hope you have the money for your car and can see your way to paying it off. However, I just think you need to ensure that you are in a position to afford it.

All the best
Clariman

path29

hi clariman

basically i didn't want to take the car dealers finance at 6.5% as i know there are ways to get finance at 0%. what i didn't appreciate when i did it was the '3% minimum monthly payment' part. ideally i'm looking to keep the monthly repayments to about £200 max, so having a card on 2% monthly payment would help achieve this. obviously as time goes by and i reduce the overall amount owed, the 3% thing won't be such a big problem - i.e. when i reduce the balance to £6600ish the 3% monthly payment will be around the golden figure of £200 per month.

do i have the wrong idea about all of this? is there an easier way?


thanks for your concern


Pat
___

Thefunkygibbons

The problem you will have is if you fail to get a new 0% card to roll over onto, then the CC interest rates will leave you going backwards at minimum payments only.

It is under control at the moment, but if there is a credit crunch, it is a high risk strategy.

I would recommend some serious cost cutting so that you have more money each month to throw at the problem