0% Credit Card Interest Offer - Floating My Largest Balance
Last week I became extremely frustrated with myself for letting my credit card interest rates raise obnoxiously high. The worst part of it was that it happened totally unbeknownst to me, so I shared my tip about checking your interest rates often. (it shows how out of hand my rates were on my cards and how much I’m wasting every year because of it)
So, today I saw Mrs. Accountability’s post about how she just opened a new card that has an offer for for a 12-month 0% interest transfer with no transfer fee on the first transfer. That’s the part I hate about most of these card offers is the 3% transfer fee attached to the whole deal.
My initial credit line is only $6000, but that’s how big my largest card is, so I won’t bother asking for more. All additional transfers will require the 3% transfer fee.
Here’s a snapshot of my confirmation page:
I have a feeling this is the beginning of a series of card transfers to completely get rid of the $300 a month worth of interest I’m throwing away to credit card companies every month. I’m not too happy about having to manage all of these cards, and the last time we did this I ended up with an extra $5000 worth of debt. But doing this will pay us more than my wife’s part time job! 
Anyone else out there doing something similar to this? I’d like to know of any other cards or offers out there that I could utilize to get the other $12000 worth of credit card debt in an interest free state for awhile.
Debtbeater
February 12th, 2008 at 7:53 am
I actually was considering something like this except using the $$$ to drop into a savings account, as I have no outstanding CC debt. Unfortunately, I ran the numbers with a 3% balance transfer fee. I later added an addendum, but have yet to run the numbers to see how much I would earn.
In your case, however, you are literally *earning money* for every dime you save in interest! To be perfectly honest, even a 3% initial fee is worth it for a 12 months 0% balance transfer, especially when you would normally be paying 10%+ APR. Basically you would be replacing the 10% compounding interest rate with a 3% one time finance charge. Then repeat every year and it turns out your paying 3% once on all your cards, as opposed to an incredibly high amount every month.
February 12th, 2008 at 8:34 am
[…] couple people found my post on a 0% interest no-fee Citi Balance Transfer Card useful, so I’d like to […]
February 12th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Playing credit card arbitrage sounds feasible, but I’m really not interested in managing all those accounts in my already super-chaotic life. I’m looking for simplicity. However, when moving from a high-rate card to a zero-rate card from year to year until the balances are paid down I really can save some cash. I’m down for that. Dropping from near 30% to 0% for a year makes a HUGE difference!
February 12th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Zachary Spencer posted over at my blog a warning that if the 0% interest credit card isn’t paid off within the 12 months, they will backcharge the interest. It will be important to keep track of when to move that balance if it’s not paid by then. I did NOT know that. Freaked me out, just the thought!
February 13th, 2008 at 2:03 am
I’ve had a card do that to me before as well. The idea is to float the balance every 10 months to make sure it doesn’t sit in one place long enough to actually get dinged for the interest. Hopefully we can pay down enough on the cards to make it an easier process each time.
Definitely a good point to make though! Thanks for drawing attention to it!