It might just be the wave of back to school cheer, but zero interest credit cards are making a big comeback. They’re being talked about, debated, and selected as one of the hot trends of the coming fall and winter season. In the world of personal finance, there aren’t too many topics that spark wildfire like credit. Get ten people in a room talking about credit, and you will never get a unanimous decision on really anything — except that credit is contentious. There’s something that credit that tends to get us agitated, but I’ve never really known that that might be. The truth is that you have to make your own decisions when it comes to the world of credit. Just thinking that everything is going to be fine is a mistake. You might find that you need to think more about credit than most, or you need to think less about credit than most.
If you are always struggling with the credit you have, we have some bad news: you probably will not qualify for all of the hot zero interest credit card deals. These are usually saved for people that have pretty stellar credit. That’s not saying you shouldn’t apply, of course. You might be surprised to find just how many people are out there thinking about credit in a deeper fashion than you might have imagined.
It’s a matter of looking at the future and figuring out what you want. Do you want to finally save some interest and pay off other credit cards? This would be a great move for a super saver to shave off extra interest. You need to make sure to check about the balance transfer fee as you calculate your savings. If there’s no transfer fees involved, you could have a great opportunity to save some interest. However, there almost always is some type of balance transfer fee involved.
Zero interest cards can be helpful when you have a big purchase that you know you can pay back before the introductory period is over. This will help you save on interest charges as well. You do need to think about that possibility. However, there are some downfalls — you need to make sure that you’re not paying a super annual fee. There are just too many cards that don’t have an annual fee to be stuck paying one. You also need to see what the average APR will be after the introductory period is over. Don’t ignore that fact because if you do, you’ll end up paying a lot more interest than you bargained for. Some credit card companies are willing to negotiate, especially if you’ve been with one of their other cards for a really long time.
It’s completely up to you to figure out what you’re going to do, and how you’re going to do it.