Hi Stuart, Your interpretation on being 'on the verge' of money problems is correct. That is why I asked for help. I do have a good credit history. I have always paid my bills in full including my credit card. I plan to pay about two hundred pounds per month which is above the minium payment and not to spend anything on that card towards paying the £5000 overdraft

I will be living on bread and water for some time but at least I will be clearing my debt.

I do have a question about an extention of authorised overdraft. Do you mean ask for more time? or more money?

I do have an authorised overdraft with LLoyds of £4000 which twice I went over. Once by £30.00 because a company debited me twice in the same month and another time £9.00 which they charged me £30.00 for the privelage. On both occasions I got my two £30.00 charges back. I suppose I was lucky. I also have a £1,300. with Barclays which also charged me £30.00 due to going over my authorised overdraft by £10.00 but I also recovered that.

Am I able to claim authorised overdraft charges?  I thought it was only for un-authorised.

Regards Jennifer

I would urge caution with the credit card route. Borrowing at 0% interest is on one level hard to fault even allowing for the balance transfer fee. It is good that you were accepted by Egg - I feared you would be declined. My interpretation of the situation is that you are on the verge of money problems but it hasn't yet manifested itself on your credit bureau records so I assume you have not missed any of your bills or credit payments - this is good news. With the 0% deal you need to be confident that the balance you put on the card can be paid off during the interest free period. Provided you put no spending on the card all the rpaymnets you make will go to reducing the debt. However remember that at the end of the 0% period you will then incur a much higher rate of interest (although possibly not much different to your authorisd overdraft rate). You could then transfer this balance to another 0% deal but should some adverse history show on your bureau data e.g. you miss some bills in the interveneing period, you may find it difficult to get another 0% deal.

Have you tried extending the authorised overdraft limit? Ths will at least avoid the unauthorised overdraft charges which are an absolute killer.

also have you tried getting a refund on your charges in light of the campaign run by various consumer groups to reclaim charges? thsi could be worth a go (albeit try and agree an extention to the pverdraft limit before you take this action!).

I also agree with the balance transfer on a new card. like a flexy card as the intrest goes down if you pay more than the minum due. Which is alway a good thing.

But i would say to you that you do this and then cut all your other credit cards up and try to stick to just the one.OR BETTER STILL none at all and then you will not get your self in a situation that you can not get your self out of.

 Vicky

I took notice of what you said  I have applied for an Egg Card and have been approved and will be with me in 7-10 days.     I presume I have to wait until that happens before transferring my overdraft balance from my bank.

I take on board what you say. I most definately do not want to incur anymore debt. This all happened when the $$ took a dive earlier this year and people don't want to buy property.  I thought the Brits would have jumped at the chance to buy a house in Florida well under the usual asking price. Perhaps I am advertising it in the wrong place. [Don't suppose you have any suggestions on that eh!

Regards and Thanks---Jenn

Yes.  You will pay the transfer fee (about 2% I think), but that will be significantly lower than any overdraft APR. This will mean you should be able to clear the debt that much quicker.

I have already said it though, but make sure you do clear it, and not just end up building up another debt in parrallel 

Hi Dave Thanks for answering.

Do you mean apply for an EGG credit card and transfer my overdraft to it?

Jenn

One option is a 0% balance transfer card which allows balance transfer to overdrafts (e.g. Egg, Barclaycard).

Just make sure you dont build the overdraft up again if you follow this route. 

Dear Stuart

I have a £5000 overdraft which unfortunately I have to use almost to the maximum every month. I am not able to reduse it . This has been going on for many months now. You can imagine the overdraft charges. I also have a personnal loan of £22000 still outstanding. The reason I am in this mess is I bought a small house in Florida with the intention of living there but due to certain circumstances my plans got changed. I put the house on the market to help clear all these debts but due to the slump in the property market in Florida I have not been able to sell even when I dropped the price by $30,000 My question to you is could I open another bank account and take my current debts with me with no or little overdraft charges. Do you think I would be accepted. I currently pay in every month £1,700.00. and if so which financial institution   would you recommend?

Thanks for reading this. Jenn