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Series 3 Episode 8: Recession proof your finances
Broadcast: Wed 5th November 2008
Broadcast: Wed 5th November 2008
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In the news this week
Premium Bonds slashed, free £25 eyeshadow, £19 hotel rooms, 40% cheaper calls to mobiles & knickers coming down (in price!)
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Do a debt audit
Everyone should sort out their debts BEFORE recession hits so they’re prepared for the storm.
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Beat the insurers
Find out how a lady from Slough saved hundreds of pounds by switching her insurance providers
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Extraordinary MoneySaving
Stoozing To Success
Wed 30th January 2008
It’s possible to make serious free cash from credit cards.
In a nutshell if they’re willing to lend you money at 0% then take this cash and earn high interest on it and you can make serious money. This is called Stoozing. Before I explain how to do it, first read Paul’s story…
How Paul Made over £11,000
Paul Lockett, from Cheshire, is a wizard with his money after managing to shave over £11,000 from the cost of his mortgage.
He transferred money from 0% balance transfer credit cards to a savings account linked to his mortgage, which is called an 'offset mortgage'.
With an offset mortgage you only pay interest on the difference between the amount you have in that savings account and the amount outstanding on your mortgage. So the more money he transferred from credit cards, the less mortgage interest he was paying. This all started in 2003, when he owed £129,000 on his home loan. By last summer he was mortgage-free instead of the expected 2010 end date.
Stoozing allowed him to save so much because he was getting money from his credit cards to offset his interest payments for virtually nothing. The only charges were a few small balance transfer fees.
At the height of his stoozing, Paul had 11 credit cards on the go and a stoozing pot of £100,000. Importantly, one was an Egg Money card which was the only one which allowed him to transfer the cash into a savings account. Therefore that became the go-between as Paul would move money from one card onto the Egg card and then into his mortgage.
How you can stooze.
Stoozing is best for those who are debt free and good at keeping on top of their diaries. The key to the stoozing technique is how to most efficiently shift the 0% debt into a savings account. Depending on how advanced a MoneySaver you are, there are three techniques you can follow in order to rake in the extra cash.
Read Martin’s full Stoozing: How To Make Free Cash From Credit Cards guide, which will take you through all the methods step-by-step, including a free calculator to show you how much you can make.