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Credit card customers get smart and save money
Rising rates make deals harder to get, but they are still available
While it is harder than it used to be to get good deals on credit cards, it is still possible to find bargains. It takes time and patience, but if you are willing to put in the effort, it can pay off.
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Credit card bargains are harder to find, but they are still out there
The average American household has some nineteen credit and debit cards and carries a debt in the low five figures. That’s a staggering amount of credit and debt, particularly when one considers that the average consumer isn’t too savvy when it comes to finding a card. Most people just sign up for the first offer that comes in the mail and they stick with it. That can be problematic, as the range of fees and interest rates that are offered for major credit cards can vary widely. Some cards have no annual fee, and some come with fees of $50 per year or more. Some cards that are targeted towards people with bad credit even come with a monthly user fee, which can raise the annual cost of using the account to more than $150 per year.
On the other hand, there are some bargains out there, and smart consumers take the time to find them. While rising interest rates have largely put a damper on the low-interest credit card balance transfer deals that were quite common just a year or two ago, one can still find a good deal by doing some careful shopping. Some lenders are still offering deals that run as low as zero percent for balance transfers for as long as year and others offer low rates for the duration of the loan. Be careful, however - those deals usually come with some sticky requirements that are buried in the fine print of the bill. If you fail to make note of those and pay late, you could find that zero percent offer replaced by an annual rate of as much as 30%.
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Where do you find good deals on credit cards? As with most such searches, your best place to start is the Internet. You can search for “low interest credit cards” in Google or some other search engine, or you can go right to some of the sites that specialize in credit card comparisons. Bankrate, Creditcards.com, and CreditCardsCompare.com are good examples of sites that will let you compare offers and terms from a number of lenders in order to help you find the best possible deal.
Some particularly disciplined consumers are taking advantage of their low interest deals by using the money for investments or for moving money from other accounts that have high interest rates. If you have the average $10,000 in debt, the average 14% rate will have you paying $1400 per year in interest alone. If you can move that money to an account that offers a 5% rate for transfers and you have the discipline to use the account without paying late or charging other purchases to it, you could pay just $500 per year in interest, saving $900.
All it takes to find a good deal is a little bit of time and a willingness to look for them. Deals are harder to come by than they used to be, but that doesn’t mean they are impossible. The rewards come to those who are willing to work for them.
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