Best fixed apr credit card to have for emergencies?

[galahad15]

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@PayAndProsper wrote:

OP, you may be interested in this Visa Platinum card from Vision Financial FCU. 

• Great low, fixed rate of 7.5%.
• Same great rate for purchases, cash advances and balance transfers.
• No Annual Fees.
• No Cash Advance Fees.
• No Balance Transfer Fees.

Membership is open to anyone who lives, works, or worships in portions of Durham County and Cumberland County, North Carolina as well as employees of a number of other employee groups. Additionally, immediate family members of an already established member as well as anyone who lives in the same household as an already established member are eligible to join the credit union. You can also qualify for membership by joining The North Carolina Consumers Council (NCCC) for a $20 tax-deductible NCCC membership fee.

ETA: Just as an FYI, be ready to provide POI. This credit union tends to ask for paystubs and tax returns.

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I was actually interested in apping for the Visa Platinum card from Vision Financial FCU myself    Since I currently live near the DC Metro area and therefore outside of the geofence, I tried accessing and donating to the NCCC page for a donation amount of at least $20, as helpfully suggested by @PayAndProsper.  Unfortunately, however, in both the Chrome and the Edge browsers that I tried it with, I receive an error message whenever I try to make a donation and the transaction does not go through.  I tried sending an e-mail to their website support 1-2 months ago to let them know that their donation page is experiencing technical issues, but never heard back from anyone in response.

I will try calling NCCC tomorrow to see if maybe they would hopefully be willing to accept a donation payment from me by phone, since the website again is not functioning correctly?

[Bockrocker]

Stumbled across this one today.  Says it offers as low as 6.9%.  Membership restricted to ME unless you have a family member.  Even has a $150 SUB this month!

https://www.ofcu.org/visa-offer

[ElvisCaprice]

The best fixed apr credit card is no fixed rate apr credit card.  Instead a high yielding deposit account or liquid investment that can be used in emergency to pay off a high CL credit card that is a good earner/keeper regardless of APR.  

Note:  Just had to state the obvious.

[bs1234]

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@ElvisCaprice wrote:

The best fixed apr credit card is no fixed rate apr credit card.  Instead a high yielding deposit account or liquid investment that can be used in emergency to pay off a high CL credit card that is a good earner/keeper regardless of APR.  

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Depends on the scale of the emergency!   If you absolutely had to spend $100K while you will probably be in trouble, a small APR credit card might be good, if you don't have $100K in a high yield account.   Basically if you have to spend more than you have, change $100K as appropriate

[ElvisCaprice]

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@bs1234 wrote:

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@ElvisCaprice wrote:

The best fixed apr credit card is no fixed rate apr credit card.  Instead a high yielding deposit account or liquid investment that can be used in emergency to pay off a high CL credit card that is a good earner/keeper regardless of APR.  

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Depends on the scale of the emergency!   If you absolutely had to spend $100K while you will probably be in trouble, a small APR credit card might be good, if you don't have $100K in a high yield account.   Basically if you have to spend more than you have, change $100K as appropriate

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Your not going to find a 100k CL low APR credit card if you don't already have it, the investment, like a home for a HELOC.  

[crystal626]

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@bs1234 wrote:

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@ElvisCaprice wrote:

The best fixed apr credit card is no fixed rate apr credit card.  Instead a high yielding deposit account or liquid investment that can be used in emergency to pay off a high CL credit card that is a good earner/keeper regardless of APR.  

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Depends on the scale of the emergency!   If you absolutely had to spend $100K while you will probably be in trouble, a small APR credit card might be good, if you don't have $100K in a high yield account.   Basically if you have to spend more than you have, change $100K as appropriate

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Not many people could pay off $100K, even at 7.5%, before the interest got away from them. Making $1K payments towards it would take 13 years and 2 months to pay it off with a whopping $57,423 in interest. $2K payments drop that to 5 years and 1 month with $20,277 in interest. If you can't consistently make payments of $626 or more, you'll never get ahead of the interest, and at that $626 payment it would take 86 years and 2 months, likely exceeding what's left of your lifespan, costing $546,979 in interest.

If you swap that 7.5% for the 20% average APR right now, your minimum payment to ever get out of debt would be $1,667 - which will enable you to pay it off in 43 years at an interest cost of $758,990. At this APR, to pay it off in 1 year, your payment would need to be $9,264 a month. 

Clearly in this scenario, the person at 7.5% is less screwed, but only if they can consistently afford those high payments for many years.

These numbers are rounded obviously so they won't be exact but I used this calculator to get there. It's pretty eye-opening to see just how easy it is to get seriously underwater with credit card debt.

https://www.calculator.net/credit-card-calculator.html

[Namaste7]

I don't imagine great offerings that are geolocked. If you weren't able to locked down a low-rate, fixed APR CC years ago, the second best offering is to keep inquiries low so you can apply for a card that offers 12 to 18 month 0% purchase or BT APR upon opening. Discover could get a good back up, if Capital One continues the 0% 12 month purchase APR offer to existing customers (once ever 24 months). 

Some banks, like BofA are good at offering low-rate BT offers to existing customers. If opening a new account isn't an option, you could potential BT expense on a 0% or 1.99-2.99% BT offer. 

Of course, it's best to have cash reserves for any debt you incur, but I don't think it's bad to have an action play to access lower-rate credit when needed. 

[Jessie]

That card only helps the military community anyway. I think you’re better off building a big emergency fund and then applying for a 0% card when you need it.

[Jessie]

Can you donate $20 to join no matter where in the U.S. you live? IDK about getting a low rate card just to have though. I think I'd be too tempted to use it unnecessarily. So I'd rather have a no annual fee card with rewards. My plan is to use a site like WalletHub to find a good 0% deal if I ever need it. Either 0% on purchases if I have enough runway, or 0% on balance transfers.