Does this sound familiar?
“I currently have two credit cards. One has a balance of $7,000 and the other has a balance of $6,000. The interest rates on the cards are 13% and 21%. I’m having a hard time making the payments and the balances never go down. I applied for and got approved for a credit card with a $15,000 limit and a 0% interest rate on balance transfers for 12 months. Well this is a no brainer, right? I will transfer the balances, lower my monthly payment, and actually get somewhere with the payments due to the 0% interest rate!”
Was that a good idea? Maybe or maybe not. If you can afford to pay an amount vastly above the new minimum monthly payment and don’t continue to use the credit card, a lot of money can be saved. Here is what often happens though:
“So I made the balance transfers 14 months ago. I made the minimum monthly payments in the new charge card, but now the interest has kicked in. My monthly payments are now just as high as they were before the transfers. I even charged $3,000 on my other two cards due to unforeseen expenses and I now have payments on three cards instead of just the one like I planned. I’m worse off now than I was before.”
This is what the credit card companies are banking on. This is why they offer 0% balance transfers. They know that in most circumstances that they will make money once the interest DOES start accumulating. Plus they normally get an extra 5% of all balances transferred as the “balance transfer fee”.
Unfortunately, many of you reading have already fallen into this trap. Many of you are also about to. Before you do, contact us at Steidl and Steinberg to go over all options. Nobody wants to file for bankruptcy, but it could provide the relief you seek immediately, without trying to play the balance transfer game for years beforehand.