Is It Worth Doing 0% Credit Card Balance Transfer?
We have credit card debt of $2000 on a 0% APR MasterCard. The APR is set to go up to 13.99% next month. My dilemma. Do I go to CreditCards.com and hunt down another 0% APR card and transfer the balance?
The pros: I won’t have to pay interest, and thus will be able to pay off my debt faster.
The cons: My credit score will take a hit. It’s a pain to fill out the application and transfer the balance.
We aren’t looking to buy a house or car in the near future. I think our credit score will recover before we need it for anything. I think we’ll do it. I hate paying interest.
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By Lynnae McCoy, on Jul 19, 2007
I'm Lynnae, wife of one and stay-at-home mom of two. I'm committed to getting out of debt by being frugal with my choices in life.
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This is what we did– we transferred everything to one card as part of a motivation to get out of the debt. It’d probably bad to keep moving it, though interest is terrible!
Do it with an eye towards not doing it again!
Thanks. I think that’s what we’re going to do. And I definitely never plan on having to transfer my balance again. After this is paid off, I never plan on even having a balance again!
I’ll second that. Even though 13.99% isn’t a bad rate for a credit card, 0% is infinitely better. Definitely do the transfer and don’t look back.
Once it’s paid off ( interest free ) you’ll be banking all that extra money every month. No reason to give more to the bank than you need to.
My credit score last year got lower because i have some unpaid bills on my credit card company and i also lost my job.-;.
Don’t forget to factor in the cost (if any) for a transfer fee too!