Note: This tip isn’t for everyone but I’ll try to give enough information to outline the risks and rewards.

Say you have a debt reduction plan.  Say you have something like No Credit Needed’s Debt Reduction Guide and are following it through.  Say you’re doing really well with it, you can keep track of things, your debt is going down, and things are getting a little more comfortable.

Say also that you get advertisements in the mail for 0% balance transfers.

Why not take one of your cards with a non-zero APR and transfer it to one that has 0% APR for a while?

Well, it can help, for sure,

• if you can maintain the payments on all of your cards, especially the 0% one
• if you can keep track of when the 0% period runs out and make adjustments to pay that one off quickly when the rate goes up
• if you read all of the fine print on the offer and understand it
• if you understand all of the fees that might be attached to the balance transfer
• if you don’t use it as license to spend more or slack off

It’s probably not a good idea if you are bad with details or if you have so little breathing room that you’re likely to miss a payment.  The default APR on these cards can be quite high … and your other cards’ APRs might go up as well.

So, use 0% balance transfers with care as you reduce your debt.

(Photo: Gaetan Lee)

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