Repayment
Balance transfers work until the promotional period ends
A transfer is a tool for clearing debt on a schedule, not a way of making it cheaper indefinitely.
Yara Haddad
Debt writer, The Credit Question
Yara writes about repayment strategy and free debt advice, and is careful about the difference between the two.
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13 articles
Repayment
What to do first when the payments stop being affordable
The order matters. Priority debts have consequences that credit card arrears do not.
Credit Cards
Carrying a balance does not build credit standing
The belief that a card must be left partly unpaid to demonstrate good behaviour costs people interest for no benefit at all.
Repayment
What a default actually is, and the months before it
A default is a formal step with notice requirements, and the period leading up to it is when your options are widest.
Repayment
Debt management plans: what they do and what they cost
An informal arrangement across all your creditors can be genuinely useful, and paying a company to arrange it usually is not.
Repayment
Free debt advice and how to tell it from the paid kind
The services that charge and the services that do not offer substantially the same solutions, and the difference is who pays for…
Repayment
When to use savings to clear debt, and when not to
Holding cash while paying interest on a balance usually costs money, and emptying the account entirely usually costs more.
Credit Cards
Late and over-limit charges cost more than they charge
The fee is the small part. The marker on the file, the lost promotional rate and the knock-on charges are where the real cost sits.
Repayment
Full and final settlement offers and how they land on a file
A creditor may accept less than the full balance to close a debt, and what the file shows afterwards depends on how it is recorded.
Repayment
Token payments buy time without stopping the clock
A very small monthly payment keeps a line open with a creditor, and it changes almost nothing about the underlying arithmetic.
Repayment
Payment holidays are deferrals with a price attached
Pausing payments moves them somewhere, and where they go decides whether the pause was cheap breathing space or an expensive habit.
Repayment
Overpayments only help if the lender applies them as you assume
Paying extra can shorten a loan dramatically or achieve almost nothing, depending on a treatment decision the lender makes quietly.
Repayment
Rebuilding after a default is evidence, not erasure
Once an accurate default is recorded, the only mechanism available is to build a newer record beside it and let the clock run.