Doing The Credit Card Shuffle

There are many credit card programs available on the market. Many cards not only charge zero interest rates for an introductory period, but they also don’t charge an annual rate. If you have a lot of credit cards, you might want to play the ‘credit card shuffle’: use low-interest or no-interest cards to pay off higher interest cards’ balance and move your balance before interest rates kick in.

Here is how it works: you take all your current debts and pay them off with a balance forward payment from a card that has no interest and no annual fee. You simply write a ‘credit card check’ issued by your credit provider to pay off the balance on these other cards. Once you have paid them off, make sure you cancel those cards and rip up the cards.

The tricky part of the ‘credit card shuffle’

Now that all your debt has been consolidated in one zero-interest or low-interest card, your next step is to pump as much payments to your card as you can. You have to try really hard to eliminate the balance as soon as possible.

After a couple of months, start looking around for another card that charges zero interest rates and doesn’t have an annual fee. Once you have secured the card, wait until the final zero interest month on your current credit card. On the final month, pay off the balance with credit card checks from your other zero-interest card.

Keep repeating this process until you have eliminated all your credit card debt. Sure, this is quite tedious and you have to really pay attention to when your cards’ zero-interest periods expire but it is all worth it. If you are staring at five digits or more debt, the little hassle and leg work you need to do are minor headaches compared to the pain of crushing debt which doesn’t seem to come down due to the high rate of compounding interest.

Use the card shuffle to learn new financial skills

While you are doing the card shuffle, use this period as an opportunity to learn new financial skills like not using plastic, buying only stuff you need, and never buying more than what your income allows. Learn to live within your means and the period of time you spend doing the credit card shuffle will produce a new fiscally responsible future for you and your family.