The Credit Card Balance Transfer: My Saving Grace

By Author: Kacy Suther
Total Articles: 223
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Credit card companies are notorious for getting people into jams--well, people get themselves into jams, really, but sometimes it's nice to have an institution on which you can blame your shortcomings. Despite how despicable creditors can sometimes be, there are services that they have put into place so that cardholders have an opportunity to bail themselves out of unmanageable debt. These services, if used responsibly, can save you a lot of money in interest; if used improperly, they can drive you even deeper into debt. One such method is the credit card balance transfer. This is my story of how I used a 0% balance transfer to climb out of uncontrollable credit card debt for good.

By the time I graduated college, I was the proud carrier of two major credit cards and one small retailer-issued card. I was one of those lucky kids whose parents paid most of their bills for them, so it wasn't until I started a full time job that I took over my own bills and began to fully realize the reality of my situation. Based on my current balances and the interest rates on each card, I was spiraling rapidly toward having a debt ...
... I couldn't manage within my current means. It was time to take control of my finances and figure out what I needed to do to make it so I could pay these balances off. The first thing I knew I had to do was stop using my cards. This meant making sacrifices, but that alone was a significant part of the lesson.

Once I shredded my cards, keeping one around for emergencies, I went online to search for credit card balance transfers. What I found was a 0% balance transfer card that I hoped would take over the balances of my two major credit cards with high interest rates. If I could work on paying those balances down interest-free for a year, I knew I could have the debt paid off completely by the end of that time period. That way, as long as I didn't charge anymore money to the card, I would be done paying it off before it began charging me interest.

Now, some people have difficulty leaving their new 0% balance transfer cards at home when they go out shopping, especially when they're low on cash yet aching to spend some. This is how they get you--that low interest rate is extremely enticing in that it makes it easier to rationalize spending more money. "Oh, I can pay it off within the year, no problem!" you might say to yourself. The bottom line is--don't do it. Before you know it, a year will have passed and you'll have a higher balance than what you started with and a much higher interest rate to boot. This will have defeated the whole purpose of the credit card balance transfer. The only reason I was successful in reducing my debt was because I stopped spending my credit and I resigned myself to making more than the minimum payment each month. By the end of the year, I was free of credit card debt, and as an added bonus, I had built up a good credit history and was able to get myself a new car.