Friday, November 16, 2007

Don't Pay Any Fees

Savings account interest rates in the banks these days are terrible which is why we have been using ING for most of our savings. Their rates are very high compared to banks and even CD's and money market rates. One of my other beat the gas squeeze tricks is to avoid service charges for anything, and that includes interest and other fees for credit cards. We almost always pay the balance monthly. However this summer, those of you that follow this blog will know that the cabin has a been a sink hole for cash. So we didn't pay the credit card bill in one shot. I decided to look around for cards that, number one, didn't charge a balance transfer fee, and two, gave me a year to pay the balance. I am actually making money on the money in my interest bearing account while I pay the minimum needed to pay off the balance in a year. A bonus, but not a need, was a company that had a Credit Card Reward Program. If all things are the same why not try and get something back as well, right? I used the old fashion search engines and it was very tedious and time consuming. Had I known there were search engines specifically for this type of search I would have saved time. CreditCardSearchEngine is one such site that lists the cards by category. You can search for cards that give cash back, cards for people with bad or low credit ratings, balance transfer cards, student cards and many other additional categories. It allows you to compare the cards with each other as well. You can also search by brand and card issuer. So now I will know for the next time!