The Lemon Fool

In 2004 or 2005 I wrote the first ever Stoozing FAQ on the Internet which was on The Motley Fool's credit card board. Stooz bought the domain name stoozing.com and things developed from there until we ended up with this place.

Anyway, it has been many years since I Stoozed. However interest rates are making me wonder whether it is worth doing again.

I have 2 questions.

Are there any cards without a balance transfer fee or with a very low one?

Are there any cards out there that can pay directly into a bank account?

Many thanks
Clariman

Clariman wrote:In 2004 or 2005 I wrote the first ever Stoozing FAQ on the Internet which was on The Motley Fool's credit card board. Stooz bought the domain name stoozing.com and things developed from there until we ended up with this place.

Anyway, it has been many years since I Stoozed. However interest rates are making me wonder whether it is worth doing again.

I have 2 questions.

Are there any cards without a balance transfer fee or with a very low one?

Are there any cards out there that can pay directly into a bank account?

Many thanks
Clariman

Not sure about credit cards, but the bank that hosts my current account is offering me up to £20k unsecured loan at 3.7% over 5 years. I can do better than that in fixed rate savings bonds. TBH, can't be bothered for the sums involved - rather pursue some other avenue to increased net worth - but I think you are correct and timely to flag this.

Edit: I have credit cards offering me two years interest free for 2.9% transfer, so again, stoozing possible. And I haven't hunted out best deals (this one's a Salisbury account I paid off ages ago).

Just did MBNA's eligibility checker. They'd give me 18 months 0% money transfer for a 2.99% fee. Shawbrook offer an 18 months fixed bond at 4.11% APR.

Maybe worth it if can get a large credit limit?? Probably not.

I was doing something like this 15 to 20 years ago, without realising that the game had a name, let alone that it had been trademarked!

The flattening of the yield curve killed the fun. Along perhaps with the fact that it only ever worked when only a few were doing it. Once the masses piled in, the card issuers got wise and started doing fees for 0% balance transfers and the like. In fact these days I only see zero-interest offers without a fee when initially applying for a card.

So I think the easy money has been made and, these days, it is an increasing effort for a diminishing reward. I feel the same way about endlessly swapping savings accounts for marginally more interest. Life is too short.

Was there a stooz-like name for spending on a zero percent credit card, paying the minimum monthly amount and saving the rest in a high interest account and only clearing the balance at the end? "Slow stoozing" springs to mind.

Might be worth a try if you spend a lot on credit cards. A few places are offering 25 or 24 months at 0% https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credi ... dit-cards/

Scott.

Clariman wrote:In 2004 or 2005 I wrote the first ever Stoozing FAQ on the Internet which was on The Motley Fool's credit card board. Stooz bought the domain name stoozing.com and things developed from there until we ended up with this place.

Anyway, it has been many years since I Stoozed. However interest rates are making me wonder whether it is worth doing again.

I have 2 questions.

Are there any cards without a balance transfer fee or with a very low one?

Are there any cards out there that can pay directly into a bank account?

Many thanks
Clariman

I have an MBNA card that allows fee free payments to a current account, but I've not seen that as a new offering so I'm holding on to it dearly. Some credit cards do offer money transfers (MT) to a current account; generally I have noticed the MT fee is higher than the balance transfer. There are some 2ish year interest free low BT/MT cards and of course interest rates are rising. In the good old days I did have a fair balance of money stoozed, if I could get those sorts of numbers on the move again it'll be worth keeping an eye on the market place.

swill453 wrote:Was there a stooz-like name for spending on a zero percent credit card, paying the minimum monthly amount and saving the rest in a high interest account and only clearing the balance at the end? "Slow stoozing" springs to mind.

Might be worth a try if you spend a lot on credit cards. A few places are offering 25 or 24 months at 0% https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credi ... dit-cards/

Scott.

Yes we used to call that slow stoozing. That could be an option.

I was big on stoozing back then, was a no brainer, made quite substantial gains. When they introduced charges and made it hard to xfer to current accounts it got a lot harder and eventually with such low interest rates, uninteresting. Since then have been slow stoozing, currently got Virgin money at 19 months. Earlier this year changd direction and got a BA Amex card for the Avios. As interest rates rose got the Virgin card, searching did not produce a single 0% balance transfer.
Interesting to see if there is any 0% around though as my daughter needs a new one in February.

seagles wrote:As interest rates rose got the Virgin card, searching did not produce a single 0% balance transfer.
Interesting to see if there is any 0% around though as my daughter needs a new one in February.

A year or so ago RBS were offering a no fee 0% BT card. I see they still do one as do Natwest same group.

Lootman said he didn't know the Stoozing term was copyrighted. Of course it wasn't but it was absolutely and genuinely named after our very own Stooz.

In 2004 a user called blarn (IIRC) posted about "doing a Stooz" I.e. doing what Stooz had done with 0% credit cards. This became known as Stoozing and the verb entered mainstream dictionaries by 2006. You can still buy this book about the new words that entered the dictionary that year. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Collins-Smirt- ... 007211767/

Stooz never claimed that he invented it but he was an early adopter. Martin Lewis likes to give the impression that he invented it but he was actually a bit late to the parry.

Clariman wrote:In 2004 or 2005 I wrote the first ever Stoozing FAQ on the Internet which was on The Motley Fool's credit card board. Stooz bought the domain name stoozing.com and things developed from there until we ended up with this place.

It would have been 2004, I got the idea from TMF....

In Aug/Sept 2004 we bought a house with a very large offset mortgage (5 x joint salaries) with monthly interest greater than my takehome, effectively a mortgage with a Bridging loan added as the sale of the old house had fallen through.

Thanks to the Egg credit card we managed to Stooz £38k over 2 weekends before we got a rejection applying for a card, for 9-12 months. This made a huge difference to us as the other house took another 8 months to sell and the rate was 7% so we saved a couple of hundred qui a month.

As an aside, it also lead us to realising how much we could save if we wanted to as previously we'd barely been filling our £3k/annum ISA allowances, which was a major factor in managing to reitre early and comfortably.

These days we buy everything pretty much on an M&S MBNA card, limit is probably circa £8k. They are doing interest free on "shopping" and the best easy access looks about 2.5%, so probably make £150 over a year running the debt up.

What this has raised though, is that the cash we'd sat aside with Marcus for the house works next year could now make us an extra £1k/year by moving it, which with intrest rates quietly sneaking up is definitely worth looking at.

Paul

At the height of Stoozing, I had £92K on Stoozing credit cards

I earned over £2,000 per year doing it for a good number of years.

I've just seen an email.
Tesco Bank.
Our lowest fee on balance transfers at 1.19% Up to 28 months of 0% interest on balance transfers from when we open your account.
or
Our longest 0% period on balance transfers for up to 33 months. 0% Interest on balance transfers for up to 33 months (2.59% fee)

They look like a viable stooz course credit limits are the thing that make it really worthwhile but free money for a bit of admin. I already have a pretty large unused limit accross half a dozen cards, that'll possibly push acceptance and then any new limits downward.

https://www.tescobank.com/credit-cards/ ... er-card-1/
or
https://www.tescobank.com/credit-cards/ ... sfer-card/

kempiejon wrote:I've just seen an email.
Tesco Bank.
Our lowest fee on balance transfers at 1.19% Up to 28 months of 0% interest on balance transfers from when we open your account.
or
/

Ooh and Charter Savings Bank are now offering a 2 year fix at 4.61%

Hey we are getting there folks

Clariman wrote:

kempiejon wrote:I've just seen an email.
Tesco Bank.
Our lowest fee on balance transfers at 1.19% Up to 28 months of 0% interest on balance transfers from when we open your account.
or
/

Ooh and Charter Savings Bank are now offering a 2 year fix at 4.61%

Hey we are getting there folks

Ahh but Tesco are 3.99% for a money transfer into a bank. Not so easy then.

Clariman wrote:Ahh but Tesco are 3.99% for a money transfer into a bank. Not so easy then.

Sorry, not so widely useful; as I said up thread I have the MBNA Everyday card that I use to mule fee free cash transfers to current account.

A heads-up for anyone with a NatWest mortgage. They will let you pay down using a credit card.

I've been getting the usual 0.5%cashback, and 0% for "56 days" by simply paying off lump sums on the day after statement day.

Obviously this only works if you have the money to do the paydown in the first place...

pochisoldi wrote:A heads-up for anyone with a NatWest mortgage. They will let you pay down using a credit card.

I've been getting the usual 0.5%cashback, and 0% for "56 days" by simply paying off lump sums on the day after statement day.

Obviously this only works if you have the money to do the paydown in the first place...

Good wheeze, I had a Tesco current account and debit card where I could shuffle money from my Tesco account using the card to buy Premium bonds scoring clubcard points then withdraw cash by selling bonds moving the cash to my First Direct current account and back to Tesco then repeat.
m

I was just thinking with rising rates that stoozing is back and now Martin at mse tells me it is too.

There is definitely potential to make a few pounds here.
When every penny counts.

As clariman says, I was very supportive and sharing information on the fool from a very early stage, helped on by my not very inside knowledge as an employee of egg at the height, but certainly close to the benefits