where has the credit gone?

[winterblues25]

I’ve usually never had a problem being accepted for credit but just tried to increase my credit limit on my card recently and was refused, new balance transfer card and loan applications refused, credit score good, even the balance transfer offers on my credit card which I’ve had for years have been withdrawn??

Unless our circumstances drastically change I can’t see it being an issue, most people I know have car loans bigger than our entire debt

My credit card provider keeps offering me more, last offer was £12k limit, so I’m not sure credit is being clamped down, but I do pay it in full each month.

if you have had credit card balance outstanding for a long time, you’re not clearing it, and you’re using it for everyday spending, not just typical online shopping for the payment protection that offers, and not paying in full, then this is probably being flagged, and is the cause of reduced credit options

A quick Google seems to indicate that around half of Uk credit card holders pay their bill in full each month, meaning obviously that the other half don't.
So I have no idea why so many on this thread are so wide-eyed about the concept of this. It's hardly a unique position, regardless of where the debt has come from.

No one is wide eyed, they just think its madness to get into this much debt for school uniform, gloves and swimming lessons!
Taking out an 8K loan for a reliable family car to get to work is understandable
Racking up debt for years and years on stuff that could easily be bought second hand or gifted / stopped in the case of activities is the issue.

Op has now had her lines of cheap credit pulled and will rack up interest even if she stops spending
So what next?

Ha thank you, find the pearl clutching posts quite amusing to be honest, we could of easily stayed in our rented house and kept the 12k house deposit we’d saved so we could say we had savings, our rent was less than our mortgage and we wouldn’t have had to decorate, carpet and furnish a new house. I could have quit work at a time when childcare costs were more than my salary. Instead we’ve 8k of debt but have paid 70k off our mortgage and built up about the same in workplace pension savings in the same time too, have 3 lovely happy healthy children, 2 DSC who are doing well at uni and who don’t feel like they’re missing out because of younger siblings and we’re both in jobs we love with decent salaries

Do you feel better about yourself?

He goes out to work full time and earns a good salary and pays a heap in tax :)

Yes definitely, just watching her play with her big brother and sister at the moment 🥰 she’s worth it 💯

What makes you think social tenants are fine with children?

They actually tend to be far more accommodating of children than private landlords

It’s not growing let alone significantly?

We do pay significantly over the minimum payment each month, would take us about 3 years to pay off at a 5% interest rate, frustratingly longer then that at a 25% rate but then we should have more
disposable income once DSC graduate. Obviously with the DSC there was maintenance payments until they started uni and and with our older children there weren’t the funded hours until 3 so quite a few years with all my salary going in childcare costs but now have flexible working and we also get the funded hours so that’s helped alot

You said in your PP that you have been refused a limit increase, loan and balance transfers and will be paying 24.9%
Why did you want to extend the limit ?

To do a balance transfer from another card which was coming to the end of its 5% term

Your credit utilisation goes up when you close old cards, I closed two of mine and my credit rating dropped a bit when I did.

Not blaming the credit card company, was responding to a poster who said they were doing me a favour by not offering me a low interest balance transfer as they had done previously, they’re quite happy to offer me one at x5 the rate they were last month

In what way is he not affording them?? Who have we asked for money for to support them??? If we couldn’t of got credit we’d probably have just ditched our pension contributions for the time being

If you can't afford your basic living expenses without credit you are living beyond your means. 5 children is a luxury most people even the well off, recognise they can't afford.

You’ve asked the credit card company for money to support them. (Which is fine, that’s how they make their money, but this whole thread is about your need to ask someone else for money to cover your family’s expenses.)

We've worked for our money and don't use credit, people like that do exist! Just live on a ruthless budget.

When you get paid, work out in total what you would usually spend day to day spending from any of your accounts, pay that off it so that your credit utilisation is less for more of the month, you’ll pay less interest too, then just use the card for all your spending in the meantime from the available credit, then after 3 months they’ll likely offer you an increase as you’ve been showing them you can pay more, and as your credit utilisation has reduced on average you’ll likely find that you get offers for 0% balance transfers (with a 3% fee) on money supermarket or Experian.
Also, always check several places before committing, sometimes offers are better on money supermarket and others Experian etc are better

But OP is being economical with the facts here.

She had told us that her dh is a higher rate Tax payer.

A little bit later she said DH has a take home income of about £2800 after tax, NI, SLC and contributing towards his DC uni costs

So the £2K isn't his net income, it is what is left after he has spent a considerable part of it.
This is to do with having 5 dc but not acknowledging that means you can't spend the same way as you could if you had 1 or 2 or even 3 dc.

1.Branded clothing, if your counting TU and George? 2. Food, we buy a combination, I’ve not yet come across any nicer chocolate brownies than Lidls own brand 😋
3 we do make more than the minimum repayments, some months our take home is 5k and we’ll pay an extra £900 and other months our take home is
2.5k and we’ll pay the minimum and the groceries will go on the credit card
4 I’ve had one day this last week when our poorly 1 year old has been happy to be put down for long enough for me to load the dishwasher let alone wash and iron school uniforms, thank goodness they have 5 sets each which I could prep that day so they were sorted for the week. My DH does help when he’s not working, to earn his salary he has to work a lot and often away, he can’t be in 2 places at once
5 precisely how many people are you supporting on your salary?

I think I made it quite clear in the particular post where I said £2800 after deductions and contribution towards my twin DSC uni costs, how much clearer could I make that? He pays that precisely because of his income, if his income (or their mother’s) was lower than they would receive the full maintenance loans.
Here we are minding our own business, working hard to give our children a nice upbringing, not asking for money from you or anyone else, for our 8k in debt we’ve concurrently paid 70k off our
mortgage and built 70k extra in pension savings over the same timeframe, I simply ask a question about credit and it’s all guns blazing because I buy them ‘too much’ school uniform and have a spare set of gloves for them, they’ve never even been to Legoland let alone had a holiday last year, that’s how frugal we are, honestly, people on this thread are absolutely hilarious 🤣

We don’t need to ask but we would like to make the most of the opportunity to use our workplace pension schemes, own our house etc, I simply wanted to know how the credit landscape lies at the moment as it will help us plan our finances more efficiently