Ah, a dream of mine would be to find a credit card that’s going to charge me no interest. How great would that be? That’s like asking for a loan, but you have to pay no interest. While, yes, it does sound too good to be true, I wanted to show you how you can find a credit card that has no interest at all. What you’re going to notice is that it’s going to be a lot harder than you think.

0% interest credit cards are hard to find…

If you really want to get a loan, or credit card for a 0% interest rate, you first have to ask yourself, “why?” Do you want to transfer a car loan? student loan?

No matter what you wan the loan for, you may be looking in the wrong spot. What you don’t want is a credit card with 0% interest, but rather a balance transfer card that’s going to give you 0% for a certain period of time.

You can do all the searching the world and go for loops, but let me give you the honest word right now. You’re not going to find a credti card that’s going to pay you 0% for life. This isn’t going to happen! If they did this, everyone would know about it and the banks would go broke. This wouldn’t be fair to the banks, would it?

How a balance transfer is going to work…

You’re going to first want to know how much you’re going to transfer over. Many credit card companies are going to want you to have a good credit score, if you want to apply for one. Generally, if your score is higher than 700, you should get the okay.

Next, ask the bank if you’re able to transfer your balance over. You may find that it may be too much. If this is the case, you may want to cut it half, or split it up.

After you figure out what you can transfer, how long is the 0% going to be into effect for? What you’re going to realize is that you’re going to want to pay it off within 6 – 12 months. Even if you can’t pay it off within that time period, you can always get another card after the 12 months and repeat.

These type of cards are a great way to pay nothing on your loan balances. There are a lot of balance transfer based cards out there and it changes all the time. Find one that works for you and go from there.

Many customers got a poor experience with frequent flyer miles programs in the past when they found that it is very hard to redeem the miles and the whole effort is not worth the benefits. Credit card companies noted the grumble and promptly shifted to other incentives.

In the UK consumers can enjoy a very good choice of credit cards, and these days the choice is better than ever, with something to suit everyone. In addition to standard credit cards, where you can enjoy a certain, specified amount of credit and spread repayments, you can now also opt for prepaid credit cards, which may prove useful for certain consumers. Although prepaid credit cards are not yet available from every card issuer, they are becoming increasingly popular in the UK.

Standard cards

With standard credit cards you can use your card to make purchases and cash transactions, and then you can repay what you owe. on the card over a period of time or altogether at the end of the month. If you clear the balance each month you won’t pay any interest, otherwise you will be charged interest on the remaining balance (unless you have an interest free credit card and clear the balance before the interest free period expires).

Pros:

Convenience and flexibility Being able to enjoy a specified credit limit Being able to spread the cost of purchases Enjoying rewards or interest free credit based on type of credit card Being able to avoid interest charged by clearing the balance each month
Cons:

Extortionate interest rate charges on uncleared balances on some cards Possibility of high charges for late repayments or for going over limit Potential to get into high levels of debt Risk of credit card fraud
Prepaid credit cards

With prepaid cards you can enjoy the convenience and ease of making purchases on a card, but you will not actually receive credit. Instead, you have to load the card with cash like a prepaid mobile phone. You can then use the card to make purchases up to the amount that is loaded on to it. This is a very effective way for those with poor credit and who are unable to get a regular credit card or a debit card facility to enjoy the ease and convenience of shopping by card rather than cash and cheque.

Pros:

Convenience and ease of shopping by card No risk of getting into debt No costly charges or interest fees Easy and convenient to load card with money Suitable for those with bad credit
Cons:

Having to have the cash upfront in order to make a purchase No additional benefits and rewards like many credit cards Cannot spread the cost of purchases

You can save a lot of money by using a no interest credit card. Of course, it doesn’t mean that if you use it to purchase items that you will save more. There is one particular way, however, that will ensure that you save money and this is what is known as a balance transfer. Transferring your debt to a no interest credit card means that you can pay off your debt on a monthly basis and without the worry of an interest rate that gets you even deeper into debt.

Credit or bank card companies will not always offer this feature in their cards so it is really important that you ask first if a certain company will allow balance transfers with the no interest credit card offers that they give you. The whole purpose of the card after all is to just give new customers a chance to try out credit services of a certain company. That being said, the zero percent offer that they give to new customers does not last forever. They will only last for a limited period of time which can be 6 months for some institutions, 12 months for others, and even 15 months for those that are really generous with their offers. But any of these offers will give you enough time to transfer debts and pay them off interest-free.

Get a no interest credit card but make sure that there are no hidden fees attached to it. One hidden fee, for example, is an annual fee for just using the card. This is not a good charge especially if a credit card company will not give you any rewards for using their services.

Do not take all of your money out of the bank. A run on the big banks has already happened, of sorts. You see contrary to 5 months ago, August 2008, when the president and congress tried to assure us that the economy was fine and progressing, we’ve all heard differently since that time. So, what happened in such a short period of time?

Well, the previous news that the economy was good, was a hopefully reassurance, to get you to spend money, if you had any, especially during the holidays. Reality is, the banks are seriously broke. Consider all the bankruptcies taking place, not just individual bankruptcies, but the big companies as well. Large corporations are falling by the wayside in record numbers. I’m sure you watch the news, so you are hearing this too. The loans and bank notes held by the banks, for all these bankruptcies, is literally breaking the banks to the tune of millions of dollars a day. They are becoming insolvent and to put it more simply, they owe more than they can take in, from outstanding loans now in default.

Citi Group and Bank of America have already received millions in bailout money and they need even more bailout funds as soon as possible. The government will not allow them to fold, but the sweep to merge and create a stronger banking industry is fast underway.

So how can you protect your money? Unless you have millions of dollars, your money is insured and safe, so no need to rush to the bank and make a major withdrawal. If you want to find a safer way to invest your money, and have it rise higher in value, you should seriously consider buying gold coins or gold bullion. When all else is failing gold has always gone up in value and has never hit zero, or even close to it.

Even though the government has already generated some $350 billion in bailout money, they will need to do this a second time and fast. Once the banks are assured they can access money to lend and create new accounts to customers, the price of gold and gold coins will also rise. Having money invested in gold is a really smart investment right now and you can always buy and sell gold easier than any other commodity. Gold is universal and maintains it value stronger than any stock on the stock market.