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Does Anyone Here 'play The Credit Cards'


FrozenOut

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HOLA441
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HOLA442
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HOLA443
If you change your credit card every six months, you'll have a credit check done on you each time.  Credit checks reduce to your chances of getting a mortgage and I assume most people on this forum will be FTBers in the next 2years+.  I would have changed my credit card several times if it wasn't for this reason.

Best card to have is cash back cards such as Amex blue. You get £100 a year for spending £10,000 as long as you pay back each month.

A credit check only stays on your file for a year and there's nothing detrimental with having a couple a year, several in the space of a month or so might set alarm bells off but card tarting had no effect on our remortgaging (for a better deal, not MEW) when we did it last year.

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HOLA444

I'm amazed that nobody has mentioned stoozing the money into their ISA. Mr K & I have put £3k into our cash ISAs each year as a result of using 0% credit cards. We now have well over £20k earning more than 5% TAX FREE! & if we ever get turned down for the next stooze, the money is there (in the ISA) to pay off the debt. If we had a mortgage we might have used the free money to offset the mortgage interest, but we paid our mortgage off two years ago!

Premium bonds are a great idea for once you've used up your Isa allowance. for a few months, pre 2000, we had £40k of PB's(money earmarked for house deposit & refurb costs) we seemed to get a cheque from Ernie most months (usually £50, but a couple of £250 months were pretty good)

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HOLA445
"Does Anyone Here 'play The Credit Cards'"

You hum it and I'll sing along.

But seriously, a v bright girl called statscat who used to hang out here did some stoozing and had a v large sum on deposit which she had borrowed on plastic for zilch interest. I don't believe it is possible to do this anymore however. Also, anyone who borrows money in this way to invest in the stock market has to be a psycho: I say this from the perspective of a full-time index trader.

psycho seems a bit strong, unless they're putting the money into geared derivatives

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HOLA446
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HOLA447

I am up to about 22k stoozing now.

Egg are my favourite bank in the entire world. They gave me the following-

10k limit

Ability to transfer directly into my savings account

0% interest from Jan 1st to Sep 1st

Every anniversary (around feb for me) I can transfer another balance interest free until Sep 1st. I can do this in 2006 and 2007

10 pounds just for signing up to Egg Money Manager- their software which allows you to view all your online accounts in one place. Which is fantastic by the way.

Thats a lot of free money :)

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  • 2 weeks later...
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HOLA448
I am up to about 22k stoozing now.

Egg are my favourite bank in the entire world. They gave me the following-

10k limit

Ability to transfer directly into my savings account

0% interest from Jan 1st to Sep 1st

Every anniversary (around feb for me) I can transfer another balance interest free until Sep 1st. I can do this in 2006 and 2007

10 pounds just for signing up to Egg Money Manager- their software which allows you to view all your online accounts in one place. Which is fantastic by the way.

Thats a lot of free money :)

Anybody know the typical credit limit to salary ratio for credit cards?

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HOLA449
Anybody know the typical credit limit to salary ratio for credit cards?

It varies from company to company so its difficult to say, some lenders provide very generous limits others don't, it is possible to challenge limits that you are offered (send them three months of current account statements plus records of savings accounts) but it was/is possible to get >100% of your annual salary but this isn't always advisable as companies begin to look at the overall amount of credit available to you. The trick is settling on an amount that is maintainable, you also need to check the terms and conditions for balance transfers as many companies now charge a percentage so you need to work this into your calculations.

Egg, MBNA and capital one seem to offer the highest limits; egg gave me circa 25% of earnings, MBNA circa 20% and capital one (my favourite) gave me 33% for 18 months :) but bare in mind that I have quote from my bank manager: an exceptional banking record so this might not be the case for everyone as its down to your individual credit rating (mr stats earns more than me but I tend to get the higher limits). If you already have an egg card with a good limit then I suggest the co-op avantage card its only 6 months but they do say they will match the limit on your highest card.

Before you contemplate going this route and attmepting to stooze you need to ask yourself several questions

1. will I be needing large amounts of credit for a real purchase e.g. mortgage or car?

2. can I fund the repayments from my wages or will I need to use capital ? (this affects the rate of return)

3. Can I cope with the temptation of having all that money and not spending it?

4. Do I have the financial discipline to keep record of the dates and not to get os greedy as to stretch it to the end (e.g you must be prepared to settle a week before due date etc)

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HOLA4410

thanks for your advice. I am pretty sure I have an excellent credit rating. Unless the people who lived in my flat before me will affect it. They have lots of outstanding accounts. I've lived here for 7 months though and I'm on the electoral roll.

I do want to get a mortgage, ideally in about 12 months time (waiting for a crash!).

Any idea how long it might take for my credit to recover if I was to hypothetically "stooz" about £15,000 (about 40% of salary)? After it was paid back I mean?

Edited by bugmenot
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  • 4 weeks later...
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HOLA4411

Yes, you can actually make money.

There's always someone out there giving cash refunds.

Egg started it in 1999 with giving you back 1% of your spend.

Then they went mean, and are now down to half a percent.

Likewise, Halifax went from the full one to a quarter percent.

But for a while, Nationwide are giving 1% again, and then

it will be someone else. This is particularly good if you

spend someone else's money, as I do on business expenses.

So I put through £2,500 a month, and pocket £25.

Legal, tax-free and very nice, thank you.

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HOLA4412
The incentive for me is that whatever I get on the card will go with the £40k I have in ING, so instead of getting 5% on £40k I will get 5% on say £45k if I take £5k on a 0% deal.

And that's minus of course, the amount I regularly save (£1000-1500) a month.

Yep, I do it with 25k

No point losing out on free money!

I wont bother going into the ins and outs of it all - very time consuming.

This site tells you everything you need to know -

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/

Its the guy that does the Radio2 money slot with Jeremy Vine. It does work. it is legal. theres some pitfall to watch out for.

Good luck and happy hunting!

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HOLA4413
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HOLA4414

Very interesting subject.

Regarding Premium Bonds, according to NSI the only way to apply online is using a debit card: "Your debit card details (Maestro/Switch or Visa Debit)"

I was thinking of using this card http://www6.marksandspencer.com/009/index....ome&Product=009 to buy premium bonds, but am a bit stuck on how to go about it.

Any ideas? Or any better cards for this purpose?

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HOLA4415
Very interesting subject.

Regarding Premium Bonds, according to NSI the only way to apply online is using a debit card: "Your debit card details (Maestro/Switch or Visa Debit)"

I was thinking of using this card http://www6.marksandspencer.com/009/index....ome&Product=009 to buy premium bonds, but am a bit stuck on how to go about it.

Any ideas? Or any better cards for this purpose?

MrB what a good question.

I got round to securing an Egg card. What was the credit limit I hear you ask... Was it £10k.....£15k.....£25k.....?

£500 quid. What a joke.

Currently deciding what to do with the £1.52 monthly interest.

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