Almost everyone in the UK has some form of debt, whether it be for a mortgage, car loan, overdraft, credit cards, the list goes on, and it's the last one i am discussing in this thread today as this has been my nemesis for some time.......Credit cards. Only recently i realised what i was actually paying in interest on my credit card, a whacking great big 29.9% PA. I worked it out that i would never pay it off in any decent level of time with the funds i had available to do so, i suppose up to that point i was to some degree burying my head in the sand and trying every month to somehow pay the bill when it hit the mat. It's very frustrating when your money is stretched already and then mortgage increases etc add further weight to an already over laden wallet. Like myself i am sure people looked at ways of increasing their income, options which seen to regularly crop up when you do a search for such ideas are mail order, so called get rich schemes, part time work and the choice which I'm sure a lot of people try....Ebay. Up and down the country thousands of households engaged in a de-cluttering frenzy, scurrying back and forth to the post office with their Ebay parcels. This easy money fix can only last a limited length of time until you end up with no possessions in your house and then wonder what to do next. I know as this happened to me and i didn't know what to do, then after further research mainly through the Internet i had what some weirdo's call " a light bulb moment ". Instead of chasing additional income i should be concentrating on reducing my expenses, seemed simple, in other words saving money, not by putting it in a building society ( can't do that anyway as i have no money to do so ) but by using the biggest resource available, and it was right in front of me, the Internet.
How to clear a Credit Card.
As the title say's " Fight Fire with Fire" i was going to play them at their own game. I was going to clear my current credit card by using.......another credit card. Sounds crazy i know but before you dismiss it just think about this, if someone offered you enough money to pay off your credit card debt and asked for no interest for 12 months what would you do ? i'll tell you what you would do, snatch their hands off. Well that kind of offer is readily available, and it's name is Balance Transfer. Credit card companies offering 0% interest for periods of time ranging from 9 months to 13. I found that the Natwest and the RBS offered 0% for 13 months with a payment of 2% of the switched balance, but the longest length of time at 0% was VIRGIN with a massive 15 months, but you would pay a higher 2.98% fee. These wee just a few of the many that are out there and guess what, i applied for most of them. My credit rating was FAIR, so with this in my mind i was perhaps feeling over confident and this proved to be the case when my bubble burst very quickly. Like a pack of cards they all came tumbling down with the phrase " Thanks for applying for a ........But on this occasion " I was the undesirable, the itch no one wanted to scratch, where to turn to now ? I visited Moneysupermarket.com and did a " Credit Worthiness " comparison, entered the options i wanted ie 0% Balance Transfer and clicked for the best deals available. I then applied for the ones i hadn't already done so and low and behold the same replies came flooding in, to say i was at a low point is underestimating it.
After hours of thinking and turning my head to soup i directed my attention to the source itself, the credit card company themselves. Upon ringing the number on my statement, listed there for such enquires i spent the next 10 minutes, and this i add is no exaggeration pressing every number on my telephones hand set to be guided through series after series after series of pre-recorded " Press 1 for this and 2 for that ". All of which made the old lift music we moaned about years ago when put on hold seem highly pleasurable, when i finally got through to a " Human " and i explained my situation, she replied " I will have to transfer you through to another department " Agh!!!!!
At this point i was probably developing phone rage as i again explained my situation and asked for some assistance but more importantly guidance. I was informed there were a number of possibilities i could try which were,
- 0% Balance Transfer
- Lower Rate Balance Transfer
- Loan
- Request the intervention of the Debt Management Team
Of the 4 she explained to me i concluded that number 1 was now a dead duck, number 2 hadn't even entered my head, number 3 sent shivers down my spine and number 4 nearly made me collapse as this would completely ruin what credit rating i had left and would place me alongside the single cell amoeba in terms of banking evolution.
I opted for option 2 and revisited the Credit Worthiness checker to see what deals were available with lower interest rates. The cheapest one i found was GOLDFISH with a 3.9% PA and M&S with a 5.9% PA but do some further searching and there are many others. I was refused the M&S one earlier today and am still awaiting my fate on the others, pinning my hopes on the old saying " No news is good news " however my financial time bomb is ticking away as the next payment is due soon and i am some what skint. So the next time i write i hope to inform you all that i have succeeded in Transferring my balance and have effectively reduced the interest PA from 29.9% to at least 5%
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