Currently I have 7 cards with balances.
Amazon: $624 0% ends 6/24
CareCredit: $1,037 0% ends 12/31
I still have a very good offer from Barclays for a BT 0% through Oct. 2014 3% fee
The other balances have 0% for long enough I can pay w/o getting interest other than PSECU which i'll just have to suck it up and pay them every month.
Would it be a good idea to take this offer and have 5 accts with balances with Barclays having a 75% util.?
I'm looking at it like having less cards to worry about and less with balances. Right way to look at it or just pay monthly??
The Amazon balance will hurt paying next month PIF. CareCredit I can hang with until end of the year just looking to get rid of it now.
I do like the consolidating of multiple payments into one as long as you don't create a new payment which I sometimes do!
But I recently consolidated a good portion of all our cards (smaller) to the New Bank of America we just got... Just waiting for the payments to clear Navy checking for Macy's and Macy's Amex and then the payment from Bank of America to clear for the Navy Cash Advance I took and it will all be finished.... I paid about 8 balances but we are now going to be up to 4 that we carry a balance on (all 0% of course AND sitting on about 75% of the cash to PIF the balances at anytime)
Financially paying the 3% to move 0% money isn't that great but we are talking just a couple grand so not a whole whole lot of money and as Suze says sometimes money is just as much mind set if not more and if you are more relaxed about it then in the end it may not actually be costing you more even though on paper it may seem so because you are more relaxed and you may be attracting more money to you vs. attracting more money issues (repairs, or something to you) depends on the whole power of energy and such that you believe or not 
I wouldn't balance transfer any sooner that you have to on the Carecredit. That 3% fee on $1,000 is $30 you wouldn't have to pay until December when the balance is smaller. The decision to transfer over the Amazon may be financially beneficial if its a 20+% interest card and you won't be paying it off for 6 months or so. But even if it ends up costing you a little bit more, maybe it is worth it to consolidate that one payment.
I don't know where you are at in terms of your other balances right now, but I think consolidating an interest accruing balance to a non-interest accruing balance will help you focus on your larger balances. But don't jump the gun on those that aren't gathering interest yet.
I don't know where you are at in terms of your other balances right now, but I think consolidating an interest accruing balance to a non-interest accruing balance will help you focus on your larger balances. But don't jump the gun on those that aren't gathering interest yet.
That's a good point, but my experience with my 4 creditors is that ALL of them offer 0% BT with a 3% fee. I see it on my log in screens everyday. And unless the Fed increases interest rates the banks will likely want to continue gathering that fee income and put their balance sheets to use by attracting new balances through BT. Given LS's breadth of credit available, I have a hard time believing that he won't be able to call each of them in December and inquire about the possibility of negotiating a 0% interest BT deal. He has a good chance of getting one of them to say yes at that point. And I would say that goes for anyone out there as long as interest rates stay low and that person has displayed good payment history.
The BT offer ends June 4th. You can still get BT offers past the promo at 0% on certain cards?
ok i do not want to sound like a negative here but it sounds to me like you are just trying to shuffle debt without ever actually paying anything totally off.
I think utilizing 0% is great I just did that myself but I would say hae a definite plan and a definite plan for when the balance will be paid off. NOT just I can open another card with 0% and move it there.
Is there a reason you don't just want to pay off each card before the 0% runs out on each card and then only PIF after that.
Your util is calculated across the whole CL so it doesn't care if it is on one card or 7.
I was in a loan with like 40% interest (not joking out of a 300 payment only 120 was going to principal) so when I hit this reality I just recently paid the loan off using myCap 1 that is still in 0% (yes it was a payment not a BT). Now I debated on this but before I did it I knew 1 my util and CS would take a hit for the 2 months it is going to take me to pay it off. BUT I have my autopayments already set up to cap 1 that I will have the full amount paid off 2 weeks before my 0% runs out.
so my question is what is your real picture, is there a valid reason fo transfer or just shuffling debt around.
Whoa whoa dude you got the wrong idea!
Im paying my cards down every month, im not opening any new accounts to shuffle debt around. My current lender Barclays sent me a sweet BT offer that IMO would help PIF other accounts not to use those cards again while extending my 0% some to ease payments for me.
I fully intend to pay my balances and not run up anything else. I would rather have 4 cards with balances instead of 7.
Im paying my cards down every month, im not opening any new accounts to shuffle debt around. My current lender Barclays sent me a sweet BT offer that IMO would help PIF other accounts not to use those cards again while extending my 0% some to ease payments for me.
I fully intend to pay my balances and not run up anything else. I would rather have 4 cards with balances instead of 7.
@TimeToRecover wrote:ok i do not want to sound like a negative here but it sounds to me like you are just trying to shuffle debt without ever actually paying anything totally off.
I think utilizing 0% is great I just did that myself but I would say hae a definite plan and a definite plan for when the balance will be paid off. NOT just I can open another card with 0% and move it there.
Is there a reason you don't just want to pay off each card before the 0% runs out on each card and then only PIF after that.
Your util is calculated across the whole CL so it doesn't care if it is on one card or 7.
I was in a loan with like 40% interest (not joking out of a 300 payment only 120 was going to principal) so when I hit this reality I just recently paid the loan off using myCap 1 that is still in 0% (yes it was a payment not a BT). Now I debated on this but before I did it I knew 1 my util and CS would take a hit for the 2 months it is going to take me to pay it off. BUT I have my autopayments already set up to cap 1 that I will have the full amount paid off 2 weeks before my 0% runs out.
so my question is what is your real picture, is there a valid reason fo transfer or just shuffling debt around.
Seriously, I think wanting fewer cards to tackle to avoid interest charges is a valid reason. He already said paying the amazon off before the promotion end date will hurt him. If that is not a valid reason, I don't know what is. Sometimes (if not always), avoiding emotional stress trumps utility.
LS2982- You know what is right for your situation. You have made great progress and if the transfer brings you piece of mind and keeps you on the path of becoming debt free, do it.
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