To ask you to please help me sort this financial mess!!

[MoneyMare]

DH and I have two credit cards. One is on 0% and has a balance of £3040. The other card has is not on 0% and has a balance of £3228.

We have been paying as much as possible off the one that isn’t 0%, each month, to minimise the interest payment and have just paid the minimum on the other. I have just realised the 0% runs out mid December and am afraid we are going to get hammered in interest. DH is refusing to apply for another 0% card and do a balance transfer, as he is sick of having credit cards. I get it, but it’s going to cost us loads if we don’t. I can’t get as good a deal as my earnings are a lot lower than DH’s (I’m working on that).

We currently have £4,000 in our current account, but have about £1,500 of bills to come out of that. We have other financial commitments as well as this, this is just the direct debits.

What should we do? Please help.

Exactly. You aren't giving within your means. Racking up debt and paying it off with more debt isn't sustainable. You need to work out how this stops once cards paid off. I personally would take savings and pay off debt. I would then invest and anything I would be throwing at debt I would be saving.

OP this is not a big deal. Get a 0% balance transfer and deal with it in 48 months. Done.

I take 6k every couple of years just for the fun of it. It’s free why not!

Edit - double post

I mean this kindly - but £6000 of debt that you didnt have a solid plan to manage paying back, is quite a lot of debt.

It sounds like you’re piecing together a reasonable plan.

1. Transfer the debt to something with the lowest interest / running costs as possible.
2. Focus hard on getting that paid down during that low interest period. Probably by cutting discretionary spend for a while.
3. Aim not to accrue any more credit card of short term unsecured loan type debt.
4. Once card debt is paid off, run another few months on that same tight budget until built up an emergency fund buffer in an instant access savings account or premium bonds so that you can avoid repeating this situation.

You’ve got what you need to sort it out. It’ll just need a few months on tightening spend up a lot.

Read her replies. She replied earlier that wouid lose a lot of bonus as in a lifetime

@MoneyMare getting a 0% and transfer is the best bet - that’s what I did for 3/4yrs at end of every 0% to move to another and pay the transfer fee and then no interest and now it’s all paid off

why did you use a credit card - what was the debt for ? Emergencies or stuff you could have saved for

If DH won’t apply for a new 0% card, can’t you do it? Or do you not work?

Mumsnet is not the best place for help with debt advice and support.

The debt support forum on Money Saving Expert will give non judgemental support as well as advice that makes financial good sense:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/debt-free-wannabe

If you post on there you will get great support and advice from other members and site administrators. I have found it really helpful.

This is also a great overview of managing debt on the same site:
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan/

Don't touch the LISA (I don't think people saying "take the hit" realise that the bonus is £1k a year if you put in £4k and they take back 20% of the balance so you actually lose money). But do stop putting anything else into it - you need the money now.

I think getting one more 0% card, transferring and then paying this off before accruing an emergency fund makes sense. Then save 3 months bills and costs. Then go back to the LISA. I know you will miss bonus money but you can't afford to top it up.

It sounds like you took out the second card to transfer the first lot of debt to 0% and then ended up using the original card again. Perhaps he’s worried about getting a third card & having the same thing happen again. Is it even possible to get a third card? Surely they would do checks?

I agree with consolidating into a 2 year loan & paying off monthly. Then getting rid of both cards.

Keep hold of the house savings & focus on getting that up to more so you get your own place. Renting is just wasting money when you could be paying off your own mortgage. Having so much on the credit cards will affect what you can borrow as mortgage companies will do a search & you have to justify everything. So best to spend two years clearing the debt.

Just get a 0% balance transfer card only, transfer the balance and cut up the card and don’t add it to Apple/Google pay.

I have a 0% with 5000 on it which I am paying of slowly but also saving in a higher interest account that I hope to transfer over to pay the card.
However I just about to get anouth 0% to pay for some very needed house repairs. ( another 2-3k!)
Sometimes these things happen.
So your credit card balance doesn't sound terrible as long as you are paying something off towards it each month