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New Top 0% Balance Transfer cards. Can you shift debt to interest free?
New. Lowest fee LONG card: Definite 3 YEARS 0% (3.1% fee)
Ends Thu. Longest NO FEE card: Up to 14mths 0%

Depressing new UK Finance stats show that in March, 48% of credit card balances incurred interest and the number of transactions rose 9% year-on-year. If you can't afford to clear your card in full to avoid interest, you can't afford not to check if you can get a 0% balance transfer card. That's where you get a new credit card that pays off debt on old cards for you, so you owe it instead but interest-free. This means more of your repayments clear the actual debt, rather than just the interest, so you get debt-free faster. A TYPICAL SAVING IS £250 per £1,000 debt shifted per year. First key info, then best-buys...

1. Avoid rejections using an eligibility checker. Our Eligibility Calc shows your odds of getting each card, so you can hone in and apply (via the calc) for the one likeliest to accept you, minimising 'applications' on your credit file.
2. Go for the lowest-fee card with a 0% long enough to clear your debt. The longer the 0% the bigger the one-off fee (eg, 3% = £30 per £1,000 of debt shifted), so shorter 0% cards are cheaper. Unsure? Play safe & go long.
3. Usually rejected when you apply? There are poorer-credit 0% cards in the Eligibility Calc. Plus, our free MSE Credit Club can analyse your credit issues (easiest route is via the MSE App on Apple | Android).

ALWAYS follow the Balance Transfer Golden Rules:
a) Never miss the minimum monthly repayment, or you could lose the 0% deal and it'll cost far more.
b) Aim to clear the card (or balance-transfer again) before the 0% ends, or the rate rockets to the higher APR.
c) Don't spend or withdraw cash - it's often not at the cheap rate & withdrawals may hit your ability to get credit.
d) If you don't transfer at application, you've often only 60 to 90 days to get the 0%. Check your card's terms.
e) Try not to borrow more, if you've already built up debt, you won't get rid of it with further borrowing.

Quick balance transfer FAQs (click links for the answers)

Q. Is it worth applying if my eligibility odds are low? | Q. What if my credit limit isn't big enough? | Q. Can I shift debt to existing cards? | Q. Should I try to pay off my biggest debt first? SPOILER: NO.

Full help and info, including options for poorer credit scorers, in Best balance transfers.

"We just found a pension worth over £60,000!!"
Martin: There's £75 BILLION forgotten in old pensions, bank accounts, savings, investments & Child Trust Funds 
So check if you're due & reclaim for FREE (including for a deceased relative)

It's jaw-dropping. People have lost touch with so much money - £75 thousand million pounds' worth - it could pay for the UK's entire annual defence budget! So, it's potentially seriously profitable to spend a bit of time checking. The full help's in our find lost accounts guide (if you find it easier to listen, there's also my recent reclaim lost assets podcast). Some proof of the pudding before we start...

Rod & Jo emailed last week: "Hi Martin, thought I'd let you know about a big win we had thanks to you. We thought my husband had at least one workplace pension that we couldn't locate and after trying all the ways recommended to try and find them, we registered with Gretel as suggested by your website. Amazingly, we found a pension worth over £60,000!" If you use our tips below and get reunited with your money, we'd love you to tell us about it.

• How do people lose track? It mainly happens when people forget to update their contact details with firms, especially when combined with the companies themselves merging, changing name, or going bust. Then there's also the more obvious cause of losing track of deceased relative's assets.
  
  

  	Estimated 'lost track'	Average per account
  Pensions (changing job & losing track of old workplace schemes makes this the most common)	£65bn in 3.3m pensions	£19,600
  Current and savings accounts	£4.5bn in 14m accounts	£320
  Investments	£2.9bn in 1m accounts	£2,860
  Child Trust Funds (All children born between 1 Sep 02 and 2 Jan 11 had one, some without knowing it)	£1.7bn in 750k accounts (Source: Gov.uk)	£2,240
  NS&I including Premium Bonds	£560m in 2.4m accounts	£240
  Source, unless stated: Gretel (other estimates vary, but all have one thing in common... it's a shedload of lost cash).

  
  After a time, accounts may go beyond lost and become 'dormant'. At that point, funds can be transferred to the Dormant Assets Scheme, which can release surplus funds for The National Lottery Community fund - though even if this happens, you can still get yours back. What counts as dormant varies, but as an example, for a bank account it's usually 15+ years of inactivity and no contact.

• How to reclaim old private or company pensions? What you do depends on how much information you have...
  
  - Dig out paperwork and try contacting past employers first.
  - No luck? Try the Govt's official Pension Tracing Service tool. You tell it the name of the employer or pension provider you remember and it has up-to-date contact details (including those that have changed name or been taken over).
  - Once you have details, contact the pension provider (you'll usually need to provide ID).
  
  Alternatively, try Gretel which you may find easier. See our full how to find old pensions for more.
  
  
• Premium Bonds, current accounts & savings accounts. The My Lost Account service brings together a few asset tracing tools in one place. Fill in the form with details and past addresses, then select which of over 70 firms - banks, building societies and the state-backed NS&I (which incudes Premium Bonds) - you want it to check with, to try to reconnect you with lost accounts. You have to tell it every firm to search, which can be cumbersome, though there's no limit. If it finds something, it'll usually let you know by email or letter.
  
  My Lost Account says it can only trace accounts marked as lost (not just those you've forgotten), so if you know the firm, do approach it directly first. While this is the quasi-official route, it's also worth doing the following...
  
  

  Gretel - the fintech firm that may just be the easiest way for all these...

  The fintech firm Gretel is free and works in a very different way. With it, you don't need to remember the names of your past workplaces, pension, investment, savings or bank account providers. It will do a 'soft search' on your credit report - one that doesn't impact your 'credit score' - to check your identity and match you with prior addresses where you may have accounts registered. How does it make money? Financial firms have a responsibility to try and track down lost accounts, especially before they are shifted to the Dormant Assets Scheme. That's expensive, so some subcontract some of the work to Gretel to do it for them. Is it better than the official routes? Yes and no. It's far easier to use as it does it all for you, results are quicker, and while it's relatively new, I'm starting to get good feedback. Yet it only works with institutions signed up to it, so there can be many providers missing compared to official routes, which is why I'd do both. Though once you're signed up, it will redo your search every two weeks, so if a new firm joins it and there's a new hit, it'll let you know.

  
  

• How to reclaim old investments? Always to try and dig out any old paperwork if you can and contact the firm direct. If not, which official source you go to depends on whether it's a unit or investment trust, insurance company-based investment, investment through your bank, or individual shares. For the correct place for each, see our find old investments info. Again though, Gretel may help.

• Child now aged 15 to 23? Check now for a missing '£2,200' Child Trust Fund (CTF). The Child Trust Fund was the predecessor to the Junior ISA, a tax-free way to save for children with money locked away till they were 18. Yet there was one big difference... the state automatically added at least £250 to open it. All UK children born from 1 Sep 2002 to 2 Jan 2011 had one, but some parents and children were unaware, and many have lost track.
  
  If you know who the provider was, contact it. If not, HMRC has a handy tool you can use to find out. Children aged 16+ can do this themselves, or parents can do it for under-18s. The average amount missing is £2,200 but sums will vary hugely depending on whether parents added to it, and if the money was saved or invested. See how to Reclaim your Child Trust Fund for full help.

• Find deceased relatives' lost assets too. If you are the executor, administrator, or someone else with authority to act, you may be able to claim assets on behalf of someone who's died. You can use all the searches above, often selecting that you're searching for someone other than you. Though at some point in most processes, you'll be asked to prove you're legitimately doing so (eg, death certificate, Letters of Administration, or Grant of Probate). See how to recover deceased relatives' assets for more help.