Credit Cards with regular 0% interest balance transfer offers

@stupidrobot Please elaborate. I hate my oldest credit card and have kept it because I have heard this. But for the past two years I have had to finagle my wayout of paying a $75 annual fee and they may not let me off the hook a third year. Is keeping this card open worth paying the $75 fee? I have an awesome credit score, several paid off credit cards with no annual fee lying around, and two with relatively low balances that I pay substantially against every month. I expect to have them paid offf by the end of January, barring holiday madness and a potentially costly veterinary surgery on the horizon.

@moondrake used to be having a long standing line of credit was good for your score. I never use the discover card i got at 18, so it probably doesn't really help.

@moondrake Look at this report: http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/whatsinyourscore.aspx I have found that when I stopped using a credit line/card it eventually dropped off the report and stopped being counted in the "longevity/history" calculation. If you haven't used the card in several years and have other credit, it probably won't hurt to cancel the card to save charges.

@stupidrobot We have two new cars (2012 and 2014) and are hoping to buy a house in 2016... after that do we need a good credit score for anything or can we start closing accounts?

@katylava It's always good to keep your score up. There's lots of companies that use your credit rating (cell phone provider, car insurance). Plus, when you go to buy new cars later on down the line, you'll want your score to be high. Closing accounts doesn't hurt your score all that much. In fact, having too many accounts open at once can actually hurt your score. No one really knows what the FICO people have in that algorithm of theirs. It's very complicated.

@stupidrobot @moondrake @medz @rockblossom @katylava @jsh139 I'm an idiot when it comes to financial things (doesn't it seem like we should be teaching personal finance in high school or something?) but I just started using the Mint app on my phone and it'll show your credit score and offer some tips on how to improve it.

@JonT I have always said that kids ought to be able to choose between algebra and personal finance in high school. Kids headed for science and math oriented careers should certainly be able to get that foundation in high school. But outside of playing Hero Systems games, I've had very little use for algebra in my life. my 20's would have been much nicer if I'd gone into them understanding accrued interest and how to balance a personal budget. It's amazing to me how many full grown aduults I know that have no idea how to write and track a monthly budget. Is this Mint app secure? Since you have togive your social security number to get a credit score I have always been very wary of online offers for that.

@moondrake @JonT On a completely different topic, my son's school has stopped teaching cursive writing. WTF! I guess kids don't need to know how to write anymore if all they're doing is typing on a keyboard.

@moondrake @JonT The Mint app/website is pretty scary, but seems secure. You sync all your bank accounts and credit card stuff to it. It didn't work with my main bank, so I stopped trying to use it. I just track and categorize expenses in Excel as that's where I balance the "checkbook". I feed that into Access where I can do some nifty queries and then back to Excel for fancy graphs and stuff. My biggest area of improvement needs to be tracking credit card expenses since I lump all those into the monthly payment. We do have a Capital One card that includes credit monitoring. (no score, but current status and alerts)

@JonT @moondrake CreditKarma.com is pretty decent for me. You can even play with some things to see if what you want to do will move your score.

@jsh139 In a generation Americans will be unable to read the Constitution.

@moondrake @Thumperchick Mint is a fairly popular and big site/app that's been around for a while so I didn't have any reservations trusting them. I probably don't worry enough when it comes to these kinds of things in general though.

@RedHot +1 for Barclay Arrival. I've accrued about a thousand dollars of free travel so far and have only had it for about a year.

@RedHot You know all the good beers and credit cards.

@tightwad It can be beneficial to do a balance transfer when you are already paying a higher rate than what can be obtained from the transfer. For example, let's say I have a car loan, or mortgage, student loan, or credit card balance that charges me in excess of 3%. If I do a balance transfer and pay 3% upfront for 0% interest all year, it reduces the interest paid through that year as long as I pay it off before the promotional rate expires. Alternate uses: cash advances for product orders of inventory to sell, especially around the holidays. Low-cost temporary loans for investment opportunities that make you more money than you pay in fees. The list goes on and on and is limited only by the imagination! Does that help?

@nadroj Same here. It's driving me nuts.

@SirLouie I immediately throw away any mail I get that looks like a credit card offer, deal, or anything else really... so I'm not much help to you.

@SirLouie Chase Slate card usually has intro offers of 0% for a year with no transfer fee.

@JonT By "throw away" I hope you mean "put through the shredder." I love my shredder. Meh should sell some small shredders. If you can find one in purple, Barney will love you.

@rockblossom Nah, I just tear them up with my hands. I'm not really worried or paranoid about people snooping through my garbage to sign up for credit cards. Maybe I should be, but it's worked out fine for me so far.

@JonT now that all of meh knows what kind of goodies might be in your garbage...

@TaRDy gotta find my garbage first! It's very well hidden.