Never had a credit card and need advice

Siren137

Hi there!
As I've said in the title I've never had a credit card before, however since I've moved in with my boyfriend I now owe a catalogue about £200 pound. I receive a monthly bill from them with a minimum payment which at the moment is all we can afford to pay on it. My other half has a couple of credit cards and he thinks it would be a good idea for me to get one and put this debt onto it via a 0% balance transfer card.

Firstly can I transfer this debt via balance transfer as I thought you could only do this with credit card debt. Secondly I'm paying 39.8% on this current debt, which card would be best for me to sign up to? I'm really useless with these kind of things so any advice would be great!!

Siren xxx

darcyvuqua

anything below the current % would be good but really you want to do a bt to a 0% card if you see what i mean!

runicfire

Not sure if you could class that as a balance transfer

However it would be good to get 0% purchases card and then pay off the catalogue from the card, at least then you wouldn't have the interest to pay as well, and you'd be chipping away at the actual debt.

DestroyingAngel_2

Siren137 wrote: »

Hi there!
As I've said in the title I've never had a credit card before, however since I've moved in with my boyfriend I now owe a catalogue about £200 pound. I receive a monthly bill from them with a minimum payment which at the moment is all we can afford to pay on it. My other half has a couple of credit cards and he thinks it would be a good idea for me to get one and put this debt onto it via a 0% balance transfer card.

Firstly can I transfer this debt via balance transfer as I thought you could only do this with credit card debt. Secondly I'm paying 39.8% on this current debt, which card would be best for me to sign up to? I'm really useless with these kind of things so any advice would be great!!

Siren xxx

I know with the MBNA family of cards (see www.mbna.co.uk) you can pay off credit card bills, catalogue bills, even household bills, as well as transfer money into your current account. If your OH has an MBNA card with 0% it would be a very good idea to pay off your catalogue bill with it. 39.8% on your catalogue is a really exorbitant rate to be paying, it's almost sub-prime!! If your OH's card is not an MBNA card, find out the terms & conditions and see if his credit card provider will do the same balance transfer deal as MBNA's cards.

CLAPTON

The most important thing you should do it sit down with BF and discuss why you are overspending .. presumably he has CCs that are not cleared each month. Paying the minimum amount on most cards means that they will take years and years to pay off and will cost you lots of interest.
Clearly you need to stop spending on the catalogue if its costing you 39.8%.

You should consider how you can increase your incomes (maybe part time work) and draw up a proper budget so you know where your money is going and how much you can afford to spend.

Reducimg the APR on your debts is a good idea, but as you haven't got a CC already you may find it difffiuclt to get a 0% card (they normally go to people with excellent credit ratings) but it's worth a try.