If your CC debt is 0% right now then leave it but you should clear it in full immediately the 0% period ends. You have enough savings to do this.I have a credit card limit of €5250 and I currently owe €3300. At the moment, I have 4 months 0% interest on payments remaining and I am chipping away at it each week. I normally would owe no more than €500 but I had to pay for car insurance, went on holiday and I had a couple of momemts of weakness recently.
Savings:
I have €35,000 in savings, of which €30,000 is tied up in a high rate deposit account until February 2009. So I can realistically only access €5000 at the moment.
What sort of account and rate is it that is locking the money away until February 2009? If there are any penalties for accessing the money early then these may be less than the cost of not clearing your CC bill once the 0% period is up. In which case it might be an option to use some of the €5K on demand for college fees etc. and some of your €30K to help clear the CC bill.I am doing a course at night, so I will need to come up with €2000 for registration fees next week. I don't know whether to pay with my credit card and chip away at the balance weekly as I have 0% interest for the next 4 months, or should I pay outright by dabbling into my savings, remember I can only access €5000 at the present time.
Are you sure that 0% applies to new purchases too?If I pay with my credit card I will have maxed out my card and owe the bank €5250 but as I mentioned it is 0% for the next four months.
Again it makes little sense to borrow when you have savings that could cover such expenditure.I want to buy a car next month for €10,000. I will need to borrow some money to fund it and I was looking towards Tesco 6.9% fixed rate personal loan over three years. I was thinking along the lines of using €3000 of my savings and borrowing the remaining €7000.
Losing 4.8% (on the portion accessed early?) may be less costly that paying probably double digit rates on the CC bill when the 0% period ends. Note also that there are many demand deposit accounts paying more than 4.8% these days and several regular savers paying almost twice that.The €30,000 is unfortunately locked in a Rabodirect term account, I am almost certain that I'll lose the high rate if I withdraw it before February. I think the rate is 4.8%.
You said it. It makes little sense to be saving while needing to borrow on an unsecured and high cost basis for other purposes.For some reason, I don't want to touch the €30,000 I kind of view that as the foundations of my future, be it a deposit for a house or whatever. It was hard to amass and I feel if I touch it I will squander it over time. Stupid reasoning, I know.
E80pm for a phone contract sounds like robbery! I'm constantly using talking to people but I only spent ~E20pm. E10pm usually covers texts and emergency phone calls and the other E10pm is spent on Skype credit.Monthly expenses:
€300 rent
€80 contract phone
€230 on petrol - approx
€170 - fixed rate personal loan with 15 months remaining
€150 - socialising
€5-8 daily on sandwiches from Spar on work days, which is probably €150 a month.
€150 on bits and pieces
Or just request and get receipts for absolutely every purchase and then reconcile them each day/week or whatever. Or there are (free or commercial) expenditure tracker applications for many (e.g. Java) phones that might be handy. Even my really basic Nokia can handle one.Also, you need to start keeping a spending diary. It's only then you will see how much you spend on crap you don't need. You can even manage it online. www.spendingdiary.com
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