Credit Card Balance Transfers?

[lvbhappy]

Hi all...

I am currently in the midst of paying off hair on fire credit card debt, high cc interest rates of ~24%.  My husband thinks we should open a new card that has 0% APR during this pay off period and transfer one of our highest balance CCs, in the hopes of not having to pay interest (being able to apply that to the actual debt) and thus pay it off during the 0% phase. The balance I'm thinking of is about $5700, so we'd save over $500 with not having to pay interest. I'm leery of opening any more accounts, though I have great credit, but is it a good option? If we did this, I would cut up the old one.

yes, I know lots and tons of facepunches deserved for getting CC debt in the first place, sigh. :(

[seattlecyclone]

Yes, take this offer. 24% interest is outrageous. Just don't use this as an opportunity to take on more debt or slow down on your repayments. Your hair will still be on fire, but this might help you extinguish the flames a bit sooner.

[pzxc]

I just did this last month.  Paid a 3% balance transfer fee ($75) to save $50/month in interest for the next 15 months on a $2500 balance. No brainer.

But like the above poster said, do NOT let this lull you into complacency.  You have only DELAYED the problem, not resolved it.

[lvbhappy]

I'm looking at the Discover it card.

•0% intro APR on balance transfers for 18 months—then a variable purchase APR applies, currently 10.99% - 22.99%. A 3% fee applies to each transferred balance.
•0% intro APR on purchases for 6 months. Then the variable purchase APR applies, currently 10.99% - 22.99%.

Seems pretty reasonable and I could hack away at the debt and hopefully keep transferring the balances over until it's paid off before the 18 month period ends. 

[Hotstreak]

Go with the Chase Slate card instead.  Same great 0% period, the advantage is that there is no balance transfer fee for anything done within the first 30 days or so.  That would save you about $170 in transfer fee's versus every other card out there!
Also, don't start making extra payments on the 0% right away unless your other credit cards are paid off, too.  You want to pay the highest ones first and the new card is certainly the lowest rate.  This gets slightly complicated if you can't pay off ALL debt on all cards within the 0% period, because you need to figure that the 0% debt will eventually increase to 10-20% or whatever.  If you post a full accounting of your debt & the amount you can repay per month, some people on the forum would be happy to make specific recommendations about that.

[lvbhappy]

I wish I could.  I already have slate, so that won't work for me. :/

I'm pretty confident that we can pay off debt within the 18months.  We are on only my income right now, and I finally got hubby mostly on board (won't get rid of the damn satellite), we aren't eating out, planning meals, etc....  we should have a big 3k tax return coming next year (yes I know now to make changes next year so it's not a free loan to the gov), plus a 3 pay check month in may, plus what I'm already paying down each month.  DH also graduates in august and will be getting a job, and should be able to put all his income towards debt as well.  That's a good thought though, if I can't transfer all of it, to continue paying on the ones that have interest