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Question about balance transfers credit cards

5 replies

cookiesnScream · 17/01/2025 11:36

I know I’m being thick but had no sleep! I’m thinking of doing a balance transfer for my credit card it has 0% interest for 2 years and 0% interest on purchases for 6 months. My question is if I buy things on it (thinking of using it for 6 months just for food purchases) what will happen after the 6month introductory offer ends? All purchases I have made will I have to pay interest on them? Or will it be no interest if I stop buying things in it after the introductory 6 month period is over then not use it and pay back the amount over 2 years to clear it off? Hope I’m making sense!

OP posts:
Fluffycloudsfloatinginthesky · 17/01/2025 11:45

You need to look at t&c - you would also need to understand what order payments applied in if you are both balance transferring and purchasing if they are different interest free periods

FarmGirl78 · 17/01/2025 12:30

USUALLY if you have purchases on your account that have been there for longer than 1 statement then you'll start to pay interest on them when the 6 months is up, unless you pay it off in full in month 7.

It's best to use balance transfer cards JUST for balance transfers and not spend on them unless you know you can definitely pay out off within the time frame.

You could find out more info on the finance section on here. Martin Lewis's Money saving expert website also has some great advice, and there's a dedicated bit of it's forum about it.

FarmGirl78 · 17/01/2025 12:33

It's not clear from your post what your trying to do.....
You have an existing card with purchases on, and the 6 month intro is coming up so you want to move the debt to a different balance transfer cards?

Or you have a card you've already transfered a balance to and you want to know if you use it to spend as well?

CatsorDogsrule · 17/01/2025 12:47

I read it as you have an introductory 6 months 0% for purchases on a new card, which also has 2 years for balance transfers 0%.

If you make purchases, there will be no interest due for those 6 months, but you will still need to make minimum payments.

What happens after that will be in your T&C. It is likely that interest will.be applied to the outstanding balance at the normal rate. They will possibly do this dating back to the original purchase date, so could be really hefty.

The only way to make this work for 0% is to diarise clearing the Purchase balance before the 6 months is up. Similarly the Balance Transfer balance before the 2 years.

Your statements should give you a breakdown of Purchase and Balance Transfer amounts, with the date the offers end. The payments that you make should also be applied to the highest interest balance first, Purchases in this case.

Always read your statements, as these days they also usually tell you how much interest will be applied to your next statement, if you don't make payment in full.

quoque · 17/01/2025 12:55

We are using a system of interest free balance transfer cards right now to successfully pay off some debt that had crept up over the last couple of years.

This doesn't quite answer your question, but my heartfelt advice is to get the card, move all your existing card debt onto it, set up the app and your direct debit to pay it off over the 12 months, then cut up the card and never think about it again. Put a note into your google calendar for when the interest free period is coming up (you'll also get a bunch of emails from them) and then if it's not cleared by the end of the offer period, get on to money saving supermarket to get a new interest free card, and move the remaining debt there.

If you're at the point where you're juggling these cards, you've got to stop using them for anything.

We're not adding to our debt at all any more, and everything will be cleared in just under a year from now, which will be such a relief.

We have a couple of these cards, with different expiry dates on their offers, and it's all in a spreadsheet with google calendar alerts so we always know what we owe, and when offers are expiring. It's definitely a slog, but it's great to see it working.

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