Are you bootstrapping your business?
Most of us are. For example, a client of mine is carrying about $10,000 of credit card debt and making the minimum payments every month. This is costing her around $1,200 a year in interest.
Expensive rent on borrowed money.
Here’s how I advised her to drop that to $0.00 per year.
Yes, zero.
Free money.
Transfer the balance to another credit card offering 0% interest for 15 to 21 months, no balance transfer fee, and no annual fee.
There are only two out there that I could find that offer that. They are Barclaycard Ring™ and Chase Slate®.
Then there are all the other offers, but telling them apart and figuring out which is the best is a bit tricky. How can you tell which is the best option when there are different variables, such as transfer fees (3%-5%), billing cycles at 0% interest (15-21 months) and interest rates once the 0% interest is over (11.74%-24.49%)? By figuring out what the effective annual percentage rate, APR, is for each of these offers, that’s how.
Here’s a matrix I threw together to show you which is the best deal. All you’ve got to do is google the name to get to an online application.
The top two are the best, the next two are also really good; the rest are representative of the usual offers of 3%-5% balance transfer rates:
| Balance Transfer Fee Rate | Billing Cycles | APR | |
| Barclaycard Ring™ | 0% | 15 | 0% |
| Chase Slate® | 0% | 15 | 0% |
| BankAmericard® | 3% | 18 | 2% |
| Discover it® | 3% | 18 | 2% |
| Citi® Double Cash Card | 3% | 18 | 2% |
| Citi® Diamond Preferred® | 5% | 21 | 3% |
| Citi Simplicity® | 5% | 21 | 3% |
| Chase Freedom® | 5% | 15 | 4% |
| Chase Freedom Unlimited | 5% | 15 | 4% |
What I didn’t include as a variable in choosing a card is the interest rate that each card charges after the 0% APR period is over. That’s because either you will have paid it off, or whatever balance you have left over can be transferred to another card.
Like this strategy? Dislike it? Leave me a comment below. Would love to hear from you.
Leave a Reply