Thoughts on paying for Solar Panels and Battery system methods - with a catch.
Hello,
I’m currently looking at having Solar panels and a battery system installed in my home.
The cost is roughly £13k.
There are numerous 12/24 month 0% APR deals on offer at the moment. Roughly, £3k down and £10k of a loan.
There are also some 24m 0% Credit cards on offer. Including balance transfer cards of 36m. (Usually with around 2.5-3% charge to transfer.)
If I were to pay via one of these cards, instead of going the loan route. Would I be able to get another balance transfer card at a later date if needed, to pay off whatever the remainder is?
To complicate things, there’s a couple of issues.
I’ve currently got a loan with my bank of around £21k remaining @ 6% APR which was taken out to pay a balloon payment for a car around 18months ago. (Which has currently broke down and requires a few grand to fix before i sell)
As I’m changing the car soon to a salary sac EV (reduction in total monthly outgoings by doing so) the plan was to sell this car in a month or 2, market rates showing around £30k sale value. (Auto Trader shows £30k+) so let’s say I have £9k positive equity best case.
When I sell the car, I’m guessing it’s best to clear the loan as it’s effectively costing me interest by having it. Leaving me with absolute best case of £9k. (It will be less as I need to pay to fix the thing first…)
However,
Cash flow and savings are low at the moment which makes me uncomfortable.
My new job pays less that what I’ve been used to for a few years, and I’m the sole earner in our household so things are tight at the moment.
I would definitely rather build up a nice buffer again to help me sleep better at night, all I can say is that I feel pretty secure in my industry, we’re super busy, so busy in fact that we’ve had to pause taking on more business as we just can’t support it properly.
So the questions are:
Should I retain the funds from selling the car to give a temporary buffer whilst building up my “proper” savings again.
Do the solar upgrade, using the car sale funds to basically pay for the Solar, and then near the end, 0% balance transfer the remainder of the original loan.
Pay off the loan in its entirety with the car sale funds. Retain whatever is left over, and forget about solar until I build my savings up again.
What do you think?