OK, lets get right to the point. Credit card companies don’t want you to compare credit card interest rates. They want to get you locked in with a card and have you make the minimum payments possible each month, because that is the way they make their money. But if you do compare credit cards with other providers, you can potentially save yourself thousands in interest over the space of the year.
You may not know that some credit card providers have a clause in their standard contract that states they can raise the amount of interest without warning if you miss a payment or even late in making payments? You may have previously had low interest on your credit card payments, but if you have missed or been late on a payment before, you could find your rate jump to over 20% overnight.
Now if you have had this happen to you, one of the best things you can do is transfer the balance over to a new balance transfer credit card account, which could have a 0% interest rate for the life of the transferred amount. What this means is that you can be paying 0% interest instead of the 20% or even more you might have been paying up until now.
This strategy will not be effective if you use your card for spending, as balance transfer credit cards only have low or zero interest on the transferred amount, and usually have a very high interest rate attached to further spending. This is where the provider makes it’s money from you. If you need a card for buying groceries and other shopping there are some great rewards cards that have low interest for everyday spending often with quite a long interest free period after the initial spend and rewards associated with the amount you spend.
With any credit card you need to make sure you keep up with, at the very least, the minimum monthly repayment. If you use your card frequently, then you should really only spend what you can already afford for the month in cash, and pay this amount in full each month. You can still reap the rewards and you won’t get behind and have to start paying interest.
