There are other things you can do to reduce or eliminate some of your debt now. I don't personally think getting 0% interest cards to pay off balances on other cards generally makes sense. Why not? Most people who get such cards free up their old cards but do not shred them and close them. Thus, they now start using them and your debt has just increased. If, however, you have a high interest card, and you can get rid of the interest with a new card, that can help so long as you actually rip up (shred) the old card as soon as the final statement comes and you pay it. You should also call the company and tell them that you'd like the card cancelled at the customer's request, or else it will show up as outstanding credit on your credit report lowering your scores, making it harder to get additional credit should you need it, and, making credit more costly to you.
Although you do not want to go this route, I have done a lot of research on these cards. Not all cards are created equal. Be wary of those 0% offers; the fine print is everything and is often the print that people feel to read or to understand. A couple of offers I have had lately offered me 0% interest for a short time; however, there was a 3-5% transaction fee for balance transfers, new purchases were not subject to the 0% interest, payments are paid to the higher interest amounts first; and, TERMS AND CONDITIONS CAN BE CHANGED AT ANY TIME. Generally, the companies take back the low interest deal as soon as you make one late payment or if you should go over-limit. But some say they can take away the low interest for higher interest if you pay some other creditor late. The deal is suddenly not such a deal anymore. Many credit card companies use variable interest rates and with the feds consistently increasing interest rates, those rates can become exorbitant. Finally, checks that come in the mail can become very costly mistakes: we cashed one once for $7,000.00 and it became a $12,000.00 debt. YOU MUST READ THE FINE PRINT ON THE TERMS YOU ARE BEING OFFERED AND STICK WITH THE REPUTABLE BANKS.
So, what are the tricks you might be thinking. Many debt relief companies will offer to come to your rescue and get your debts reduced or eliminated. Much of what they offer is very easy to do yourself: lower your interest rate on already existing cards. Contact each and every credit card company and just ask -- it's that simple. We were able to reduce our interest rate from 25.99% to 14.99% on one card, and 21.99% to 14.99% on two others. All it took was a phone call to those credit card companies. Now, this will not work if you do not pay your bills on time as I learned the hard way -- I have a credit card that started off with low interest rates and ended up costing me 29.99%. They refused to reduce that rate, so I got a 0% interest card (with very favorable terms from one of my favorite banks), eliminated that debt entirely and am canceling it as soon as I get my last statement.
Many credit card companies also have programs that allow you to skip a payment if you talk to them first or lower your monthly minimums (not something I suggest, but handy in an emergency) if you call and ask. This again is something that you can do for yourself -- you need not rely on a third-party company to do that. Anything that you can't do yourself, they probably can't do either. A lot of credit card companies offer "credit protection" programs; I have not seen their value nor researched them extensively. I will update you when I learn more about it.
Moreover, if you owe any kind of debt and find yourself in a position of being able to pay it all off at one time, call the company and see if they will accept a lesser payment for a full pay off. For example, we leased a car, and sustained damage to it. We owed the finance company $1200.00 when we returned the car. I called to see if I could work out a payment plan, and, instead, they offered me a deal -- if I paid it within 60 days, via my checking account, I could reduce the debt by 20%, if I put it on a credit card, I could get a 15% reduction. Honestly, it would never have occurred to me to ask them to reduce the debt just for paying it, but they were willing to do so -- it saves them the expense and hassle of sending it to collection. I saved cold hard cash: $240.00 to be exact. That is money that I would not have saved had the representative not told me about that option -- now that I know about it, I will attempt it all the time. It cannot hurt to ask; in fact, I read that this is a trick of the wealthy -- they make deals over everything they owe -- why should the rest of us just pay what some company says we owe because we don't know that we can make those deals? I would be sure to get a written confirmation of the paid in full debt so that if some mistake comes up later down the road, you will be able to clear it up.