This may be of help to some looking for cheap short term finance.  

 

A credit card with 0% interest on balance transfers for 29 months

 

https://uk.virginmoney.com/cards/products/pre-apply/?agg=MSE&product=bt-card-07&dclid=COiXvO_-9OICFZDN3godBn4Iwg&source=MSE-BTU-NA-NA-04118

 

There is a 3% fee added to balance transfers so in effect over 29 months that makes it equivalent to about 1.25% per year 

 

I have just applied and been approved for one.

 

Just posting this here because I have not seen a 0% credit card with such a long interest free period for a long time, As far as I know that is the longest 0% period currently available.

Ta very much, just applied and tranferred £5k balance from another credit card. Nice little saving for a while.

there's a few o% fee cards available but ranging from 18-23 months.

Nice one @ProDave. Just took one, got a decent limit. Will probably put the gate and garage door on it and ditch one of my non competitive cards.

 

52 minutes ago, Vijay said:

there's a few o% fee cards available but ranging from 18-23 months.

You have to be careful, a lot of them advertise "up to X months"  and some people are disappointed when they get a shorter period.

 

One of the features of this one, was it was advertised as "29 months", not "up to 29 months"

 

It is quite likely in 29 months I will be looking for another one to roll it over onto.

Sainsbury's have one at 0% for purchases 26 months.

Just be mindful of applying for credit cards if you are about to apply for a loan or mortgage as multiple credit checks may flag a concern to your lender. 

31 minutes ago, newhome said:

Just be mindful of applying for credit cards if you are about to apply for a loan or mortgage as multiple credit checks may flag a concern to your lender. 

Not just that, but the outstanding credit card debt will count towards the sum you can borrow. In my case a £3000 interest free balance resulted in a reduced mortgage offer of about £10k. I paid the 3k back as needed the mortgage to compete my build.

Do any of these have a credit card cheque facility? That was one of the best ways of using them in the Golden Age of Stoozing.

I am looking for a way to finance the rest of my build after the roof is on. We had planned on selling our house and living in a caravan. I doubt, as pensioners, we would qualify for a mortgage. Would this credit card fit the bill?

Could we withdraw cash to pay for labour etc?

It depends how much you want to borrow. Then how much credit limit they give you based on your credit rating.

 

The biggest limitation is you can only make credit transfers in the first 60 days for the 0% rate. If you make a cash withdrawal the fee is 5% and the 0% period only 20 months.  If you can make a credit transfer to another credit card, the fee is 3% and 0% for 29 months.

 

So what I did was for 2 consecutive months, pay all our normal credit cards by balance transfer to this 0% card, and transferred the money that would have paid those cards instead into the savings account.  This is based on us using credit cards for normal household spending and always paying the balance in full each month so we never pay interest.

 

The minimum monthly payment for this card is £25 so with no other payments that will have paid off 1/4 of our interest free "loan" by the 29 months.

 

Once we have spent all the money raised by this, we will likely repeat the exercise with another card in my wife's name.

 

At the end of the 29 months if we still have not sold our old house, then we will be looking for another 0% card to shift it onto (with another source of funds to pay that off coming on stream just 12 months later)

37 minutes ago, patp said:

Could we withdraw cash to pay for labour etc?

 

No no no!!!!  Taking cash on a credit card always has a fee. It is a percentage of the amount and varies between lenders. Cash advances are very rarely covered in the interest free period. I have a Sainsbury's card with a long interest free on purchases but they charge 3% fee for cash and interest at 25.9%.

 

 

2 minutes ago, Mr Punter said:

 

No no no!!!!  Taking cash on a credit card always has a fee. It is a percentage of the amount and varies between lenders. Cash advances are very rarely covered in the interest free period. I have a Sainsbury's card with a long interest free on purchases but they charge 3% fee for cash and interest at 25.9%.

 

The way to do these is to use the Interest Free startup period (say 30 or 60 days) to the max by transferring debt in, then putting the card in a drawer or cutting it up, and just paying it off.

 

Otherwise it will HURT.

Yes mine is now filed away and will come out in 28 months time to be paid off (or sooner if the house sells before then)

I thought the rule was to never use a credit card to withdraw cash. Ever.

No never normally use a CC for a cash advance. You pay a fee and if not paid in 1 month you pay interest. 

 

But with these 0% deals you can often withdraw cash at 0% but as I have already said the fee is higher than a balance transfer and 0% period shorter, so best to do all your "withdrawals" in the form of a balance transfer to another credit card during the opening promotional transfer window.

I seem to remember that when you pay your balance on a credit card, the non-cash part is paid first, this can cause extra charges on the cash advance.

More a cash when it is not fully paid off, but I seem to remember (was a radio or newspaper article) that it is not always clear what the balance refers to.

Law is now that payments pay off the highest interest rate bit first.

Just applied for one and got a nice boost. Thanks for the heads-up Dave.