0 balance transfer credit cards

Have you checked the mail box today? Chances are you received a credit card pitch. Yes, I know these redundant applications can get a little annoying, but some aren't bad if you take a look at the fine print. Many of us could use 0 balance transfer credit cards. This way you can take that horrific lump sum off of your current high interest card and stick it on the new one. This will save you some cash as months go by. The question is; how many credit cards are you currently holding, and what are the interest rates on each one? We all need to keep better track of this to avoid throwing money out the window.

I receive a number of 0 balance transfer credit cards each week. This is typically their selling point. Sure, it always sounds appealing to hear the word "zero." It instantly leads us to believe that we won't lose any money. However, I've learned that it's imperative to examine the tiny print in order to see the whole picture. You want to know how long the good rates last. Many companies that pitch 0 balance transfer credit cards often have an ulterior motive in mind. For example, getting you to transfer your balance so they can jack the interest rates way up a year down the road. My wife regretfully fell for this trick. She received one of the various 0 balance transfer credit cards in the mail a few years back, and decided to transfer a large balance from another card to the new one. Well, at the time this sounded ideal; however, within a year the new credit card had a much higher interest rate than her old one. We all have to watch out for this.

It's certainly not difficult to attain 0 balance transfer credit cards these days. The key is to find a great one that actually holds a low interest rate over a long period of time. This way you can pay off your balance without losing a ton of money to interest. 0 balance transfer credit cards can save you some bucks. Typically cards will jack their interest rates only a year down the road. This is where the fine print proves beneficial. You need to check and see how high those rates are climbing. Maybe the new card is not worth your time. Of course you want 0 balance transfer credit cards to deal with your debt, but you don't want to lose money in the long run.

0 balance transfers are a popular feature on credit cards, especially as part of introductory rates. People use them when they get new credit cards, because their old ones have rates that are too high and are crippling them financially. Typically, new credit cards will have a lower rate than the one that you are paying, at least for the first six months, to lure you in and get you to use their card instead of the old one. They use o balance transfers as an incentive to get you to switch your old balance to their card at 0 apr for you. This is deffinitely a good deal for you, if it really is a low apr card.

The problem is that it can be too good a deal, and you can get into further and further debts, until you cant get any new credit cards with 0 balance transfers and low apr. As a result, you'll have to start paying a high rate for your credit card, instead of the low rate you've been paying, and also pay lots of money to transfer your balance. This happened to me once. I had lost my job while paying for my house, and was temping at a low end service industry job. Normally, it would have been enough to live on, but with my mortgage payments, I was racking up debt. Instead of dealing with it, I used low apr cards with 0 balance transfers to cover my high interest rate debt. This was a good idea for the first few months, but soon I began racking up debt faster than I would have thought possible.

When my six month low apr offers from my credit cards ran out, I tried to get new 0 balance transfers cards to move my debt around, only to find out that no one was offering me them any more. They didn't even come in the mail! I was falling very quickly in to heavy debt. Fortunately, I found a new job in an ad agency, and quickly began to make an income similar to what I had been making before, but the damage had already been done. Six years later, I am only just emerging from debt that I accrued during that period. A 0 balance transfer credit card can be very useful, but it is no substitute for responsible spending! In the future, I definitely will be more careful.

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