Welcome! Check your credit card interest rates people! I’ve had a crazy week reducing my cards down to 2 credit cards paying 0% interest for at least 15 months.
Credit Card Debt before Balance Transfers
| Unsecured_Debt | Category | Amount | Monthly_Payment | Interest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Halifax | Credit Card | £1156.67 | £89.60 | 34.55% |
| Barclaycard (Me) | Credit Card | £2138.02 | £75.92 | 31.04% |
| Barclaycard (Wife) | Credit Card | £1,275.78 | £45.27 | 25.68% |
| Zopa Bank | Credit Card | £723.98 | £6.56 | 14.90% |
| HSBC | Credit Card | £6126.22 | £154.61 | 0.00% |
| Total | 11,397.68 | 371.96 |
It had been a while, if I’m completely honest, since I’d checked my credit cards, interest rates and total balances. Prior to starting this blog I was mostly head in the sand and avoid thinking about them.
To my astonishment when I started checking each one, my Halifax and Barclaycard credit cards had rocketed into the 30% interest brackets. My Barclaycard was my first ever credit card and started at 17.9%. I was shocked to see the level of interest I was paying as you can imagine. Only my HSBC card was in a good place on 0% interest. You may have seen this on my Instagram story this week.
Getting all my cards to 0% interest
While checking HSBC I noticed that I had a New Year offer for a 15 month interest free offer. I snapped that up and moved all of my Halifax Credit Card on to it. That was a priority at such a high interest rate. I then moved £1300 onto my Barclaycard reducing its balance to around £850. I was feeling good for about 12 hours and then I started to feel irritated by the rest of my balances that were not on 0% offers. I was tantalisingly close to paying no interest on credit cards.
I use an app called ClearScore (not a referral scheme, just putting the link for interest). It’s a free credit scoring app in the UK, their website advertises a few other countries so take a look if you aren’t from the UK. The cool thing is it matches you regularly to deals you should be elidible for based on your circumstances and credit score. It also has a pre-approved feature where it makes it close to 100% likely you’ll be approved. I periodically check things like new loan offers and credit cards with offers. I’ve not had one for a long time as I’ve probably reached my debt ceiling based on my income/levels of unsecured debt. I logged on to have a quick check and sitting there was an offer for 25 months interest free with Virgin Money. I was a little bit disheartened as I already have a Virgin Money Credit Card with no offers showing and assumed this was for new customers. I went ahead an applied anyway on a hit and hope basis. Low and behold, it was accepted and today all of the balance transfers I requested in the application have gone through and I am now pay 0% interest for a minimum of 15 months on all credit card debt!
| Unsecured_Debt | Category | Amount | Interest |
|---|---|---|---|
| HSBC | Credit Card | £8582.40 | 0.00% |
| Virgin Money | Credit Card | £2835.28 | 0.00% |
This isn’t quite paying them off for good but how much better does that look and feel? This kind of quick win has given me so much motivation this week!
Join the Conversation
Alongside my experiences, I can hopefully share some of your stories, whether you are at the start of this journey, part way through or have liberated yourself from the spiral, I want to hear about it!
This blog doesn’t just have to be about my journey. I invite you to join the conversation, share your stories, and connect with like-minded individuals on the same path. Together, we can build a supportive community that encourages one another to stay committed to the pursuit of a debt-free life.
Thank you for joining me on this adventure. I’m excited to see where our collective pursuit of financial freedom takes us!