Is there anyway I can get my CC companies to reduce the interest?

egg345

Hi, we are moving to a much smaller and cheaper rented house and are implementing budget diaries, have sold one car, cancelled Sky, do food diaries and basic cooking again, got cashback mobiles, do 18185 on phones, do Greasy palm and Quidco everything and have slashed our SOA's by reading DFW.

We have about 40k of CC and personal loan debt. Egg is 14k & charging 17.9% and that is the highest.
We rang them all last week and explained we were struggling to keep up and pay off because of the interest we are paying and asked if there was a way to reduce the interest we pay. They just said 'no'.
We have never been late on any payment to anyone.

Just wondered if there is anything else we can do?

In the past have stupidly and blindly been overspending by about 1k per month and now we will have an excess of about £400 after minimum payments made and everything else gone.
We will pay this off Egg every month but just wondered if there is ANYTHING else I should consider to get them to reduce the interest? I know it's our debt and our fault but the interest is £445 per month and our minimum payments are £775 per month.

We are renting out our own home and breaking even on that. The amount we will pay in rent is the same as our mortgage. Our own home hasn't sold and we live 25 miles away from it nearer to DH job and kids schools, that s why we rent here. own mortgage 110k-house worth 160k?? and less each day...
no other savings or money.

Thanks in advance.
Egg345

egg345

All ideas very welcome...what has everyone else done??

welshpaula

hiya
my bf owes around 26k on 4 credit cards he tried to get the interest lowered but they would only drop short term some wouldnt help at all and due to current credit crunch we were unable to get 0% cards etc so he has just started a DMP with CCCS in a bid to reduce the debt and get rid as soon as poss (will take 9 years paying 264 a month )
but he couldnt go on like he was he was making himself ill and in a vicious circle of borrowing and min payments .
at last there is light at the end of the tunnel and he actually has money to live off each month now which he didnt before .
because the credit cards wouldnt help(we know they dont have too !) he was driven to the DMP
good luck
paula x

egg345

Thx, I haven't looked into a DMP so don't know what they entail, what do they do to your credit rating? I mean for mortgages etc not for MORE credit cards!

welshpaula

we were told by cccs that as long as we kept our mortgage payments up to date our provider prob would be ok to remotgage.
and i have a friend who had no probs getting a re mortgage whilst on a dmp .
my bf needs to remortgage in 2 years so hopefully he will be ok but really he had no choice !
best thing he did and he doesnt want credit agsin anyway !
good luck
paula x

Staciep88

Hi unfortunatly I cannot help you but I can say that I'm in the exact same position so will be keeping an eye on this post - good luck x

angeldiva

You will be able to remortgage that wont be a problem, if you get as cheap a rate as people who are not in debt/on dmp's that’s a different question.

Whatever happens should your mortgage rise you can always reduce your DMP to cover the costs of the mortgage.

Being debt free is much more important and I read on here that a credit rating doesn’t mean that much - one of Martin's articles.

So just keep up with your mortgage payment and even your lender will be able to give you a good deal.

If not you can try

http://www.whoslending.co.uk/


Or

http://www.lcplc.co.uk/

dfw844

Sorry you might have answered this but I couldn't find it anywhere -- Is there any chance you could move the debt away from Egg and onto a different card or overdraft? Then you could reduce the limit on the Egg card to whatever is left on there.

I opened an Alliance + Leicester account because they agreed to match my current overdraft (which was very high), then I moved credit card debt to that and cancelled the card. The overdraft is 0% for one year, and I also got £50 cashback from Quidco.

The Ts & Cs are that you must have your wages paid into that account, and you must be able to provide statements showing your current overdraft, that you haven't exceeded it in the last three months, and that your account was in credit at least once in the last three months.

Just an idea, sorry if you've tried it and can't get any more credit, or can't meet the criteria. It worked for me though and my account was only in credit for 1 day in the previous three months!

Sorry Egg are being so unhelpful, and I hope you manage to sort something soon. Well done for facing up to your debts and deciding to get them sorted, it's not easy.

THE_LONE_RANGER_4

write to them and ask, play the bleading heart trick your struggling your great aunt bertha is ill etc etc etc put it in writing to them many will freeze it or may stop it but only temp try and go for 6 months and see what happens it did work for me when in debt trouble you just have to give a good sob story [anything to get through it].