BALANCE TRANSFER CARDS

By Jennifer Calonia

We’re almost a month past the holidays, but credit card debt continues to be a nagging reminder of last season’s generous spending. To combat residual debt, many consumers have considered the option to transfer credit card balance amounts onto zero-interest credit cards as a way to avoid excessive interest charges.

Photo by Andres Rueda

Credit cards are useful financial tools, but they can also be a costly lesson in responsible financial management. A credit card often gives people the impression they can afford more than they actually can and it can take years to dig their way back out of debt. Here are 11 credit card mistakes to avoid:

Maybe you are usually quite good at balancing the payments for your credit card with your paycheck, but the holidays created a big gap between your bill and available income. Now you’re fearful that there is too much debt in too many places for you to manage properly. A balance transfer credit card with a low introductory offer is just the tool you may need to help get your budget into shape.

Ever since the 2009 federal crackdown on abusive credit card practices set out to expose companies that unfairly charged consumers to use their cards, a number of other credit card abuses have been discovered.

According to a report released by the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act and a study from the Pew Health Group’s Safe Credit Cards Project, while most of the practices deemed unfair or deceptive by the Federal Reserve have disappeared, credit card companies have come up with new harmful behaviors to take their place. These new charges include increasing cash advances and credit card balance transfers as well as penalty fees  (CNN Money).

This is a guest post from Mr. Credit Card, who reviews credit cards and provides updates and opinions on the latest credit card and financial developments. Follow him on Twitter.

In any business, products are always marketed with deals to encourage new customers to sign up. Once they have signed up, companies would hope that the new customers find the products compelling enough to stick with it.

As crucial as it is to retain good credit and maintain a low balance to qualify for the best credit cards, sometimes certain emergencies can surface that shock and awe our budgets. Situations can range from an unexpected need for $1,000 to repair your car’s engine, to a $699 last minute round-trip for a family funeral.

These circumstances are never desired. However, your personal woes shouldn’t extend to your finances. It’s always smart to carry an emergency credit card that can be used for these occurrences so you can take a deep breath and know the plastic has your back.

Graduating college feels great. It’s time to drop the books, print off that resume, and hit the ground running in the real world (or travel to Europe). Regardless, everyone needs a little plastic to help them out.

Whether you’ve warmed up with a student credit card, or in need of your first credit card, it’s important to begin building credit. However, between Social Sciences and English Lit, there wasn’t a lot of time for Credit Cards 101.

Update: We’re happy that this post has sparked some debate over the validity of this technique in a post-economic-crash world, but want to emphasize that it may be irresponsible and possibly detrimental to your credit if you try it. We are in no way condoning the use of any of these methods, simply providing an unbiased review on them.

If you’re into making the big bucks then you may be excited to find out that some people are doing it with their credit cards. By using a technique called App-o-Rama (also known as Application-o-Rama), many are using credit card offers to rake in some cash.

Ryan Guina is an entrepreneur and writer. He has worked for Fortune 500 companies and served six years in the USAF. He writes about money management and small business topics at Cash Money Life and military money topics at Military Finance Network. You can follow his twitter feed here.

By now you have probably heard about the new Credit CARD Act and how it is giving consumers new protection against the credit card companies. In a sense, this is true. But it won’t do everything for you. The Credit CARD Act is there to give you some protection from credit card companies raising rates without notice, and require more standardization in the industry. But it’s up to you to pay off your credit card debt. Today we are going to show how to do just that – and do it quickly!

You know the benefits to having multiple credit cards, however, at this time you have too much debt on multiple cards and the interest rate is too high on many of them. If the technique is used properly, consolidating credit card bills onto one low rate credit card can make managing your debt infinitely easier and more cost affective.

Credit card companies often have promotions such as a low introductory rate or 0% financing for new customers willing to transfer balances from other credit cards onto theirs. Consumers can use those strategies to take advantage of low cost or free loans in order to improve their debt situation. If you find one low-rate card and transfer the balances, it is now up to you to make the system work for you.