Transfer student loan balance?

[elstongunnnnn]

I'm hoping someone smarter than me can convince me on what to do. I have $5500 in student loans at 7.35%. I could either pay this off in full in probably 3-4 months if I wanted to. I could continue making much more than the minimum monthly payment each month but continue incurring interest. Or I could transfer the balance to a Credit card for 0% apr and no balance transfer fee for 15 months. I could  then use the $5500 and stick it in a 6% savings account (mango or momentum) or some type of index fund. So what I'm asking is should I just get rid of the loan within 3-4 months and get it out of my mind or should transfer the balance and not pay interest for 15 months and pay it all off then?

[bahbahd]

@elstongunnnnn wrote:

I'm hoping someone smarter than me can convince me on what to do. I have $5500 in student loans at 7.35%. I could either pay this off in full in probably 3-4 months if I wanted to. I could continue making much more than the minimum monthly payment each month but continue incurring interest. Or I could transfer the balance to a Credit card for 0% apr and no balance transfer fee for 15 months. I could  then use the $5500 and stick it in a 6% savings account (mango or momentum) or some type of index fund. So what I'm asking is should I just get rid of the loan within 3-4 months and get it out of my mind or should transfer the balance and not pay interest for 15 months and pay it all off then?

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I'm not sure how you are able to BT a SL to a CC at 0% and no fees. Sounds pretty good (too good be true?) Do you have 6 to 12 months of living expenses saved as an emergency fund? If not, you want to focus on that first. Do the shuffle, if you want, and start your fund. If you already have 6 months of expenses saved up, then just pay off the loan. Keeping a $5.5k balance on a CC for an extended time could end up hurting your utilization, future app prospects, or other things you have not thought of. Don't forget that SL have repayment postponing options that a CC does not have in case some emergency does come up.

[elstongunnnnn]

It would involve some tricky moves and it would actually end up costing ~$40. But yeah, it would  cause me roughly 10% utilization and potentially effect future credit card apps. Of which I can easily earn more than the interest payments by taking advantage of reward/cash back programs.

[InvincibleSummer3]

Honestly? Well - I'm going to assume, and jump in if I'm wrong, but these are private student loans, yes? I'm generally against doing what you're describing with federal loans, because you lose some important protections should something financially devastating happen. But with private loans, you don't have those protections anyway. This makes me a little more inclined to consider this. Private student loans are the devil...although it's also true that, as another poster says, "0% financing is where the devil lives." You could  be merely trading one demon for another, really.

If you are 100% sure that you have enough safety net to pull this off (money in savings, etc.) then maybe this could work out. But be careful. Please.