How to pay off / use these credit cards?

[TreacherousPissFlap]

I've had a shocking credit history in the past and a couple of years ago took out a credit card from Vanquis to begin to rebuild my credit rating. The rate was extremely high but this was only to be expected.

DH was then off work for three months and we needed to use the credit card to survive, there was a balance of around £3800 in the end which I have been paying off monthly but obviously the interest is very high.

With an improvement in my credit rating I've been accepted for a Virgin credit card with 24 months interest free on balance transfers. They have taken a little over £2000 onboard, leaving a balance of around £1200 on my Vanquis card.

Thankfully we are in a much better situation financially and should be in a position to have paid both cards off by the end of next year (this is my goal but I hope it will be sooner) So when I am making my monthly payments how would be best for me to allocate it? Should I pay the minimum on the interest free one and plough everything onto the Vanquis account to prevent the interest building up? Will this look bad that I've taken out a new card and am immediately only making minimum payments? And which should I "spend" on, if either (I'd read that you should use credit and pay it off immediately which is what I have been doing with our groceries. I've never been able to work out the logic of this TBH)

Standing order on both so that you are paying above the minimum from month 2 and then throw all available funds at the one charging interest
and then the other one

Don’t spend on either. Do your normal spending on your debit card. Get used to budgeting and only spending what you need to.

Thank you
bumble I thought the idea was to use the credit but pay it off immediately - so order the groceries, check the amount and then pay it off immediately (which we can do)
It's actually easier to just pay on our debit card but I don't want to miss a trick

Pay the most to the one with the highest interest. Don’t spend on either.

I use my credit card MASSIVELY - everything goes on it
but I clear it every month

if you are only paying the minimum you need to get that under control FIRST

If you want to pay for the groceries through a separate account to your main account, get a Monzo or a Starling account and transfer the grocery money into it.

Unless you have a generous cashback card ;-)

Credit cards are wonderful things
but you have to be in control of them

Sounds like you need to look at your spending as running up a £3800 credit card bill in 3 months sounds like a lot.

Only making minimum payments is very expensive unless you have an interest free deal. Whatever you pay will basically only just cover the interest and trap you in debt for decades.

But there's no point at all paying off a credit card each time you use it. You just need to set up a direct debit to pay the whole balance every month and then just use it for your normal spending and you never pay a penny in interest, will make some cashback if you get the right card, and it makes running your current account easier because you just have to check once a month that there's enough money to cover all your bills including the credit card bill from last month.

Thanks all
barbara the £3800 is over a period of time and mostly covered when DH was not working at all.
I think that's where I may be a little confused, I think I'm supposed to pay off once a month (which makes a lot more sense!)
To clarify, we do not spend on the credit cards now at all, unless it's something I can pay off immediately. I'm extremely keen to repair my credit rating hence why I want to do everything possible.