I’m so grateful to have found myfico in early 2016. I learned about 0% balance transfers and it has saved me so much money!
Our story: My husband and I each had USAA Cash Rewards with high limits (16,200 and 17,500) with high utilization. But other than that our credit was good. (We also had Costco Amex and Home Depot – both PIF) In order to transfer all our debt, we had to get a few more cards than I expected due to getting approved for low limits. We were approved for:
Chase Slate - $1,800
Chase Slate - $3,000
Citi Simplicity - $6,600
Discover - $3,000
AmEx BCE - $10,000 (matched limit of Costco Amex during transition)
Used these to shuffle over $21,000 of debt.
As a result this is a breakdown of what I’ve paid over the years for interest and balance transfer fees -
| 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
BT Fees | 0 | 75.00 | 431.60 | 0 | 0 |
Interest | 2,563.25 | 2,128.15 | 366.85 | 0 | 0 |
Total | 2,563.25 | 2,203.15 | 798.45 | 0 | 0 |
Thanks to later joining NFCU (and our continued relationship w/ USAA), after my initial shuffle I was able to get 0% offers with NO BT fee all through 2017. We currently have $8,000 of the debt left, and thanks to NFCU’s recent 0% offer I just initiated our LAST balance transfer, and we plan on being credit card debt free by July.
So thanks so much to everyone here for all the knowledge and support! =)
