I thought that I would never really make the deadline for this carnival of debt reduction. John told me earlier this week that I would be hosting and I did not really find out until friday that Mrs Credit Card arranged a trip to New York until Monday to get away for the kids spring break! I was tempted to send John an email asking if someone would swap places with me. While I could put together the carnival quickly if I decided to, I had always put in some effort into making a carnival interesting if I was hosting it. Furthermore, people who have been hosting carnivals are getting more creative in terms of having themes and even lots of photos!. But I decided to shoulder on.

So here I am writing on a Sunday night after visiting the Museum of Natural History with the kids the whole day. My feet are really hurting so I did not mind spending some time on the laptop. After logging onto the hotels internet access and paying $9.95 for 24 hour access, I suddenly realize that I did not have much time. Plus I was getting really tired. And I have no theme! So here is my ramble, and I hope the pieces do fall together.

Bears Stearns in Trouble?

One of the events that stuck to my mind this week was the fact that on Monday, a couple of friends of mine who work on wall street’s bond departments told me that Bear Stearns credit default swaps were trading at 900 basis points. Essentially, they were trading at distressed levels. On friday, Bear’s stock collapsed despite getting emergency funding through JP Morgan. Funny things was how the bonds guys knew this might happen and the stock trading community did not know about it until it was too late. If we look at our own lives, perhaps there are signs that we can gather if we are heading towards a financial disaster. How to Know if You’re in Deep Financial Trouble by Terry of Savvy Frugality is a good check list for yourself.

Diversify Your Revenue and everything!

Bear Stearns is likely to be put on the block for sale and part of the reason is that they did not diversify their revenues when things were great the last few years. While most investment banks are have thriving bond, stock and investment banking departments, Bear’s strength is mainly in bonds (and Mortgages!). The lesson here is that one has to diversify one’s revenue stream so that you do not become too cyclical with the economy. Applying that to a personal level, PT presents 12 Ways to Make Yourself Recession-Proof posted at Prime Time Money. Another important lesson comes from Steve Faber who says that simply reducing expenses is not enough. We also have to “grow our revenue” and he encourages us to enroll in - Continuing Education Certificate Programs to Earn Extra Money.

Where’s the risk management tool?

But Bear’s story is just the latest news headlines that have hit us since last summer when the sub-prime crisis first unraveled. It started to really make headlines when Merrill Lynch, Citibank and in fact all big banks announced massive write downs on the mortgage securities. Given the amount of write downs, it makes you wonder how banks look at their risk. Aren’t they sophisticated enough? Haven’t they looked at their total risk profile. Worse to come, AIG also announced massive writedowns. Bill Gross from PIMCO described this whole fiasco as the unwinding of the “shadow banking system”. The equity analyst also did not anticipate this because many of these securities were derivatives held “off-balance-sheet”! I guess the lesson is that there is no such thing as off balance sheet items. You have to look at everything as InvestorBlogger writes in his blog aptly titled Is your bank book your financial statement?.

Speaking of risk management systems, it is clear that today’s financial institutions have been found wanting in this area. To be fair, it is a very complicated area as many loans and securities today are modeled by PhDs! For us mortals, our situation can get complicated but fortunately, we do not need rocket scientist to figure that out. There are lots of tools available and they all serve their purposes. Here are a few reviews and thoughts on the latest tools.

Millionaire Money Habiits writes about mvelopes personal finance software review

Pete presents 3 weeks with Geezeo.com - A Review posted at Bible Money Matters

Kevin presents No Debt Plan » Blog Archive » Budgeting Tools posted at No Debt Plan.

Hire the Best - Fire the Crap

When Merrill Lynch and Citibank announced massive losses on their sub prime securities, their CEO took the heat for that. And rightly so. When John Thain came to Merrill, he opened said in interviews that their risk management system could be improved upon. That must have been the understatement of the year. We have to give kudos to Merrill to looking outside and hiring someone with better risk management background. In the same spirit, The Happy Rock has just fired himself as his own CPA! and now Spends The Big Money For Tax Prepation.

History Always Repeats Itself

In 1998, Long Term Capital blew up when liquidity dried up and all their trades went sour and they could not unwind them. They were also high leveraged. You would think those lessons have been learned, but we all know history always repeats itself. Recently, Carlyle Capital has gotten into trouble because of margin calls and over leverage. And to think that they were some of the smartest guys in private equity. Here are a few posts that reminds me of this.

nickel presents Seven Deadly Sins That Lead to Debt posted at fivecentnickel.com.

Ryan Healy presents Why People Stay in Debt posted at Debt Reduction Formula.

debt freedom fighter presents Money, Mathematics, and Personal Behavior – Dave Ramsey is Right! posted at Discover Debt Freedom!.

Why Minimum Monthly Payments Will Cost You Big advice will always be ignored by most.

Would Carlyle have learned anything by reading these articles? ha - probably not. But once again, to folks like us, I would devour every word of these.

Over leverage is dangerous

A major reason of the mess that we are facing is simply the amount of over leverage in the system. From financial institutions to hedge funds and to us as individuals. Financial institutions have “off balance sheet” items (which are legitimate). Individuals as well got over leveraged because we could get 0% downpayment, get our brand new plasma TV with our HELOC! Warren Buffet used to describe an LBO as putting a dagger on the steering wheel. It makes you careful (debt makes you efficient!), but one accident and that’s it. The lesson here is do not set yourself up such that you have a razor thin margin for error. Here are a couple of posts that relates to that.

paidtwice presents Don’t Set Yourself Up To Crash and Burn - Wiggle. posted at I’ve Paid For This Twice Already….

Randy Peterman presents The Moved Buffer Theory Budget posted at Watch My Money Maker.

But how this all this happened?

After the fact, every financial journalist began to talk about how this whole sub prime mess cam e about. Easy financing, new debt securities that carved and tranched risk into different risk profile and then sold them off to investors. Because of the investors huge appetite for risk, underwriting standards become lax. This is all good and well writing on “hindsight”. insert : : Here’s an interview by Emily Starbuck Gerson with Debtors Anonymous!

Problem is why didn’t anyone foresee this years ago? Maybe it is time we looked at some trends in the personal finance world that might get us into trouble these days. For example, FMF has warned us to Be Careful with Home Equity and 401k Credit Cards. Actually, he did not even write this post! But I’ll let him get away with it since he got a good guest blogger.

To mark to market or not

Since AIG had to announce a massive $11bn write down, they have made noises and arguments against “fair value accounting”. In fact, there has great amount of debate about this recently. While investment banks and hedge funds have to “mark to market”, banks and insurance companies can shift their declining assets into their “long term buy and hold books”. Part of the debate going on now is whether having to mark to market in a declining market actually makes things worse since everyone has to sell in a falling market which sets a spiral. However, the other side of the argument is that the Japanese banks were not required to mark to market in the 90s and they took ages to finally get around their bad debt problem. As far as folks like us are concerned, we are marked to market and it is for the better. In the spirit of full disclosure, Aryn discolses February Debt Reduction Process at Sound Money Matters

Not everyone was hurt

Despite the market action during the last six months, not every hedge fund or money manager was hurt. Paulson fund was a standout. He correctly anticipated the sub prime mess and was massively short short prime related securities. His funds were up a few hundred percent and one of them was up about as high as 500%! Who says manages cannot beat the S&P. His 2007 performance alone means he can lag for as long as he wants going forward! In the spirit on Paulson’s fund outperformance, here are a few stand outs from this weeks submission.

Vicki is now credit card debt free.

Ana presents Debt Reduction Success Story in Army Times posted at DebtFREE-Revolution. Debt Reduction of $90,000 in one year! That has to be equivalent to Paulson’s 500% return last year!

Debbie tells us how How She Got Out of Credit Card Debt.

Take Action - Replenish Capital with Sovereign Funds

So far, we’ve already have had a big big financial institutions replenish their capital from investments from Sovereign funds. Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, UBS have all had foreign investments to shore up their capital. Congress may get jittery about this but these banks did the right thing because having adequate capital in times of a liquidity crunch is vitally important. Mr. Debtbeater recently Cut Up His Credit Cards. Hey, if that is what it takes, so be it.

Deleted Scenes

Well, even George Lucas had to delete tons of scenes from his final movie and unfortunately, here are some posts that can’t fit into the movie (or could it be that it is midnight and I’ve no desire to stay up any longer!). But at least, these post are still in the collectors DVD!

Dividend Money Presents student loan reduction strategy

Amanda presents 4 Credit/Debt/Money Documentaries

Squawkfox presents Rent vs. Buy Calculator

Erek Ostrowski presents Getting Out of Debt (Part 1)

Bear sells out for $2

Just when I thought I could go to bed, the news is out that Bear has sold itself to JPM for just $2 a share! What more can I say?

Acquiring home improvement tools - an idea for neighborhood non-proprietary minded male friends

“Wow, so many tools and so little money to buy them”. Yes there are great cards that help with cash back on purchases at Home Depot and low interest rates but do I really want to buy more tools that fill up my garage? Well yes and no.

Having international friends now living in the USA who have not been raised in the American culture of home improvement and obsessiveness about tools to address every possible home maintenance need, I am amazed when I look in their garages. They are completely devoid of home maintenance and improvement tools and such. And although I don’t quite see how they can survive in suburbia without the essential hedge trimmer and workbench of tools, It makes me realize that there must be a better way than to keep acquiring more tools that fill up my garage.

They have relatively no tools, and are perfectly happy to keep it that way. Yes, you might say “just call a plumber or electrician or handyman”, but we know that it is cost of labor, not the cost of tools that keeps the do-it-your-selfer engaged in such activities. In fact, for many, it is the cost of labor that helps one justify the expense of more expensive labor saving tools and devices at Home Depot.

We all have close neighborhood friends who all struggle with the issue of acquiring 1-time-use tools and storing them for a lifetime - right? Well, what to do?

I’ve decided that if we are all in agreement, to start an inventory list of tools that we can publish to each other, it would reduce our number of trips to Home Depot, save gas, time and the probability for excessive tool acquisitions. I’m going to propose this to my friends and see what they think. We’ll all have to be ok with allowing others to borrow them and there needs to be some ground rules of course. I’ll let you know what happens and then start building an inventory list. Any thoughts on this?

It’s a little belated - but a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone. Right now, the whole family is in Orlando (yes the Disney thing).

I’ll sure be reporting on some interesting experience, including car rental tips, hotel tips and some interesting stuff that has already happened in the last couple of days.

Not only do we get deals from retailers, we also seem to be getting “deals” from credit card companies. Here is the latest offers from my Chase Flexible Rewards card.

If I use my card at www.chase.com/rewardsplus, which the shopping site for Chase, I will stand to get more reward points for every dollar I spend. Here are a few example of a few offers :

8 Bonus Points for Every Dollar Spent at LandsEnds

2 Bonus Points for Every Dollar Spent at Apple Store

I have actuall done most of my Christmas shopping and hence I will not be spending much more. But here’s another example of credit cards incentivising cardholders to shop at their own “in-house” online stores.

Today, I just blew away a few hundred dollars on shoes! But here is the story. MJM, which was a store that sells shoes at a discount (with some branded names as well) was having a closing sale! Guess when you compete solely on price, things can get very difficult.

Mrs Credit Card persuaded me to check out some Men’s shoes. We duly went after lunch. And must have spent at least an hour and a half at the store. Everything was either at a 20%, 30% or 50% discount.

I started looking at casual shoes, then dress shoes and running shoes. Mrs Credit Card was busy getting shoes for the kids. To cut the long story short, check out the pictures below on what we got!

In total, I spent $350. The way I justified this was as follows. I seldom buy shoes. The last time I bought shoes for myself was in 2002, where I blew $450 on my Prada dress shoes, which I still wear to work (they do last very long). My previous shoe before the Pradas was a Ferragamo which set me back about $300. That shoe was bought in 1999.

For the amount of money that we spent today, I got myself three dress shoes, two casual shoes, one running shoes (addidas). I also got my kids a few pairs of shoes on the cheap. Aside from that, we did get carried away by buying a few Calvin Klein socks (which does not actually cost much). I even got two fancy “Nautica” unbrella’s for $19.95 each (versus $27 full price) because we have such “uncool” umbrellas at home!

So is this frugal or was it one of those spur of the moment splurges? It is probably a combination of both. Yes, it is shopping after Thanksgiving! But I felt that we were taking advantage of a store about to close. I might even go back tomorrow to buy some shoes to sell on Ebay! One thing I did do was to charge my expenses on my BlueCash from American Express Card. Since I’ve already crossed the $6,500 threshold, I’ll earn 1.5% rebates from these.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Here is a recap of my participation in carnivals and some cool posts.

Carnivals I was involved in

Carnival of Debt Reduction #114

5th Carnival of College and Finance

How to solve your money worries #9

Carnival of Debt Reduction #113

Carnival of Personal Finance #125

Cool Post

There are actually a few congratulations to be made to various personal finance bloggers.

Firstly, JD Roth of Get Rich Slowly is quitting his full-time job as his blog now has essentially replaced his current income. Congratulations to JD for his consistent posting of great blog which I can only hope to aspire to.

Secondly, Single Guy Money has eliminated his credit card debt. Once again, great work by him and an inspiration to all who are looking to eliminate their credit card debt.

Not to be outshone, Single Ma has also just become debt free. In just 1 year and 5 months, she has reduced about $25,000 in debt.

Not all posts had happy endings though. Free from Broke shares his experience when requesting for a credit card apr reduction.

I also enjoyed Kevin Flemming’s post about 5 ways to get more of your money when buying a satellite or cable system as I’m thinking of looking at Direct TV?

Finally, I can’t have a roundup without checking in on SVB. She recently wrote a cool post on How to Plan to Get Ahead - Ways to increase your income. In that post is a nice little photo! My two cents worth from looking at the picture is never look back! Look ahead.

Readers of this blog will know that I have no credit card debt. However, I do have a mortgage and even though my monthly payments are well within my means, I still feel “burdened” and really want to pay off my mortgage as soon as possible. Aside from feeling a weight on my shoulders, having no debt will mean a lot of things to me and what I can do with the spare change. It is also my motivation to reduce my mortage and perhaps will be an inspiration for you to reduce your credit card debt as well.

1. Not having to be a cheapskate

There is a fine line between frugal and being a cheapskate. But when you have to watch your dollars all the time, you end up being a cheapskate many times.

1. Being able to give my kids a more fancy birthday

OK - we do not have to spoil our kids with over elaborate birthday parties. But hey, I did not have any fancy parties when I was young and I would sure like my kids to have better parties than I had. But wherever birthday season comes (yes, all summer kids), Mrs Credit Card and myself get into arguments as to how much we should spend on their parties, how fancy should it be etc. I just wish I had enough cashflow so we do not have to agonize over this.

2. Being able to eat out twice a week

We eat at home most of the time perhaps except on one weekend where we would eat out. But Mrs Credit Card gets tired cooking all the time and I wish we could just go out for dinner when she does not feel like cooking or is too tired. Right now, we watch our budget and are frugal with regards to eating out.

4. Taking a nicer vacation

How much time do you waste planning your vacation. I don’t know about you, but when our whole family has to share a hotel room, I’d rather stay at home in my nice bedroom! But we always plan our vacations, get the best deals for flights and hotels because we have too. If we had a healthier cash flow, we would have nicer vacations. (Can’t wait for that day to arrive!)

5. Drive a nicer car

I drive a 12 year old Toyota. Frankly speaking, I am not crazy about cars and cannot be bothered with fancy ones. But I would like to drive something more “modern”. But since my second hand car is paid up, it makes financial sense to just drive it until it breaks down! But how I wish I could get maybe a second hand Lexus RX400 with a navigator and a nice stereo system!

6. Keep my house really warm during winter

Mrs Credit Card is really frugal with the household expenses. During winter, we turn our heater to only about 65 degrees. Mrs Credit Cards says we could save on our heating bills this way. All we have to do is to wear our sweaters. How I wish we could leave our thermostat on at 70 degrees or slightly higher! I really like to keep warm without wearing my sweaters at home! Well, when my mortgage is paid off, the thermostat is going to be set at 72!

7. Increase my tithing

I’ll be honest - I should be tithing more. But when your mortage is 25% of your gross and the other 30% is used for your household expense, it’s hard to get the 10% tithing going. After taxes, you are not left with much. Factor in contributing to your kids 529 and additional retirement savings, it becomes really difficult. In fact, I would attribute my mortgage to being the biggest mental block with regards to this.

8. Contribute more to my retirement account

Who wouldn’t want to do so? Even if you max out on your qualified accounts, you could still save in your taxable account and I would certainly do so. There is probably a balancing act with regards to paying off your mortgage and contributing to your retirement account instead. Mentally, I would rather pay off my debts first.

9. Contribute more to the kids 529 plans

How much will it cost to send your kids to a college 10 years later. Answers : Definitely much more than today. If only my mortgage is paid off, I will be able to contribute the necessary amount to fully fund their future college expenses.

10. Any leftovers and savings really become gravy when you have no debt

When you have no debt, credit cards, auto loans or mortage, any savings you make is really gravy that is added to your networth. And I will certainly sleep more soundly when I am totally debt free.

When my mortgage is paid off and I’m totally debt free, this is how I would spend the extra cash (though not in any particular order). I would certainly save more for our retirement and the kids college. We would tith more. And we would also want to have a better quality of life. These are what’s motivating me to pay off my debt (mortgage) faster. I hope this may inpire you if you have any debt. What’s motivating you to be disciplined and sticking to your debt reduction plan?

It was 4pm on Saturday afternoon and we still have an errant to run. We promised ourselves we would get to Best Buy to purchase our SLR camera & video camera or we would not have them in time for the kids Halloween celebration. Plus, the special discount offered by best Buy is for 5 to 8 Oct only.

For dinner, I suggested that we (2 adults plus 3 kids-8,6 &4 yrs old) try the food at Cheesecake Factory at the King of Prussia Mall but my 6 yr old really wanted to try ribs at TGI Friday - which we go regularly. Hummm, sounds good too. So we ended up there.

We didn’t have to wait long to be seated becuase many in front of us opted to sit at smoking section so it shorten the queue for us. While waiting, we looked over the menu as we were hungry and was hoping to make our ordering easier. However, we waited for a long time & no server came. So, waving my hand at the staff, a gentleman with tie (not in uniform) came over and said OK - he’ll get our server. After for more than 5 minutes, our gracious server appeared and apologised that there was a confusion and she is will taking our orders. I told her that the kids are very hungry so please serve their meals first. My 4 yr old ordered spaghetti, my 6 yr old ordered ribs & the oldest child ordered pizza. We ordered a 3 course special which is $16.99 - the baby back ribs with shrimps, loaded potato skins & dessert. I ordered the steak salad.

The ice tea, apple juice & chocolate milk came. The kids were happily drawing, coloring, decoding, connecting the dots. When they finished, the food still hasn;t arrived.Then we waited & waited & waited. Meanwhile, my kids were drinking like mad and you know how that hurts appetite. They were also starting to get restless. Finally we see our server & waved her over. She said the kitchen is very busy - indeed, the dinner crowd was probably at its peak. I was losing it & told her it is not acceptable that a kid’s spaghetti (only has sauce on it - not even meatballs) takes so long. I said I understand the ribs & pizza will take time but cannot believe that spaghetti needs as much time. I reiterated that I specifically requested for the kids meals to served first. The least they could do was to bring out the spaghetti first. Our server apologised and said she will go to the kitchen to check our order.

Finally, the kids spaghetti came - surprisingly small portion, which is OK by our standard. (so we don’t need to waste or doggy bag. At lunch, the portions always seemed larger) Minutes later, the kid’s ribs & pizza came. Our food came out subsequently.

Now, on the flavor of the food. My steak in the salad was so salty. Then, my husband gave me some of the baby back ribs and it was very dry with hardly any glaze on them. We didn’t even finish our food. When our server came to check on us, I hesitated giving her my honest opinions. I was just too tired & “resigned” to bad service and food - just wanted to go home & open a can of campbell soup. When she came around to take our order for dessert, I hinted that the baby back ribs was disappointing, certainly below our expectations. (I could not even bother to mention how salty the steak salad was. She realised that we didn’t eat alot and said she felt sorry we were let down. Shortly after, a tall man with shirt & tie came by & apologised for all the service hiccup and for the baby back ribs which were too dry. He was very sincere about it and said “he will take care of it”. We didn;t know what he meant but was glad that management is aware of the poor service & food quality we experienced. I worked as a hotel sales persons for many years and always embraced constructive feedback.

When the dessert came, our server brought us the check & informed us that they have removed the baby back ribs entree to compensate for our bad experience. That was a very nice gesture we thought. Minutes later, the manager who came to apologise to us gave us 2 gift certificates - valued at $15 each - as another gesture of goodwill ! I told him he didn’t have to do it but he insisted and wanted us to come back again.

I am always hesitant at giving feedback to service personnel (for fear that they take it the wrong way & retaliate) but at the same time I believe it is the only way they will ever know if they are delivering the right standard. Of course we have to be reasonable and provide constructive feedback and give compliments where it is due to. I remember the last time we were at TGI Fridays in late Aug for lunch and I ordered a pasta with seared salmon. I requested that my salmon be medium rare & the server said she will pass on the request to the kitchen but please understand that they are not “gourmet” chef in fine dining restaurants. She and I laughed & I said I would not raised my expectations. My food came and the salmon was exactly the way I wanted it - raw in the middle. Yummy indeed ! I gave them heaps of compliments on the spot.

Overall, I would say we are still happy customers at TGI Friday’s - King of Prussia, PA. Kudos to all the staff there who worked so hard.

I just received an email from a reader :

“Hi Mr Credit Card, my credit has taken a hit but I do need a credit card. Do you have any suggestions for guaranteed credit cards for bad credit folks like me? I have been turned down by a couple of the major credit card companies. My score is in the 500s.”

Well, all I can say is that if you have a fico score in the 500 area, credit card issuers and any finance companies will consider you to be a sub-prime borrower. Therefore, the cost of credit to you will be much higher. There are credit cards that are specifically geared towards borrowers like this reader, but they do come with higher costs and fees. Here are the different types of credit cards available and the pros and cons to each one.

1. Unsecured sub-prime credit cards - There are many issuers of sub-prime credit cards. For example, First Premier Bank and Orchard Bank - now HSBC are two of the more well-known sub-prime issuers.

The thing to be aware of when you are apply for one of these cards is the fees. You will most likely be hit with one-time application and processing fees, annual fees and even monthly maintenance fees! I wrote about this in Bad Credit Card Application Fees and Fineprints.

Secured Credit Cards - You are almost always guaranteed to be approved for secured credit cards because you must put a deposit with the credit card issuer. The deposit will be your credit limit and if you default, it acts as your collateral. Most secured credit cards do not have any of the fees that unsecured sub-prime cards charge. They usually just have a reasonable annual fee. The only thing you really have to ask is if the secured credit card reports your payments to the three major credit bureaus. This is because this is the only way for you to rebuild your credit.

Prepaid Credit Cards - You may also see ads touting prepaid debit cards. Though they may be great because you are not extended credit, it also means that you cannot rebuild your damaged credit with a prepaid debit card. It is also more costly than regular credit cards or even a secured credit cards. So unless you got into this mess with uncontrolled spending, I would certainly not recommend a prepaid credit card.

Bottom Line - Even if you have bad credit, you can get a credit card. Most sub-prime credit card issuers will approve your application. You just have to be aware that you have to pay higher fees. If can settle for a secured credit card, then you will not have to pay as many fees as a regular sub-prime unsecured credit card

The 0% financing deal really started with GM after the recession post 9/11. Back then, drive America was the slogan and 0% financing deals for autos was the rage. The credit card issuers started to also pick up on this and offered consumers 0% teaser deals as a bait and switch tactic.

With Fed Funds at 1%, offering a 0% deal appears to be a no-brainer. After all, most consumers will continue to use the card once it is in their wallets.

However, as more credit cards offered 0% deals for balance transfer, they began to compete on the length of the introductory period. Soon, lots of cards were offering 0% balance transfer deals for 12 months.

Then issuers started waiving the balance transfer fees for the introductory period. For a while, it was the honeymoon period for balance transfer deals. In fact, many savvy consumers played the credit card arbitrage game whereby they got a 0% deal for 12 months and invested the proceeds in a high yielding online savings account.

Fed Funds however, could not stay at 1% forever. As the Fed raised rates, it began to cost the credit card issuers most just to offer the 0% deals. During the last year or so, more credit card issuers began to stop waiving the balance transfer fee during the introductory period.

Some issuers went a step further. They not only required a balance transfer fee during the 0% introductory period, but they also removed the cap on the maximum fee you pay. Since most fees are 3% of the balance transfer amount, anyone with a large balance to transfer will be hit by a huge BT fee! Here is an update for the state of the balance transfer fee situation :

Bank of America - Bank of America credit cards have now no cap to the maximum fees. You should not get Bank of America credit cards just for a balance transfer deal.

Chase - has a standard 3% of balance transfer, minimum of $10, maximum of $75 BT fee. But just recently, Chase has stopped offering 0% balance transfer deals for 12 months and cut them down to six months.

Discover Cards - Discover Cards have the same balance transfer fee policy as Chase. 3% of balance transfer, minimum of $10 and maximum of $75.

HSBC - If you are a HSBC bank customer, the balance transfer fee is waived if you apply for a HSBC card and do the balance transfer upon application or during the introductory window. If you are not a HSBC customer, the balance transfer fee is 3% of balance transfer, minimum of $5, and a maximum of $99.

Citicards - Citibank has different balance transfer fees for different cards. All but one card have balance transfer fees during the introductory. The one good feature about citicards is that you are allowed to do your first balance transfer during the first 12 months and the 12 month introductory period starts from the date of balance transfer (not account opening date).

No Balance Fee Credit Card - Where Are You?

So which cards in the market offer a good 0% deal on balance transfers with no balance transfer fee? Well, the only reputable card today that offers such a deal today is the Citi Professional Cash Card. You get a 12 month 0% balance transfer deal without having to pay any balance transfer fee. Forget about most of the other 0% deals on the market. They all charge balance transfer fees.

The good old days may be coming to an end soon

Not too long ago, lots of cards offered 0% deals for 12 months with no balance transfer fee. Today, only one card from the major issuers offer such a deal. But, this may soon be a thing of the past?