Are you a credit card tart?

I'm a bit of a credit card tart in that I like to chop and change and swap balances on my credit cards in order to keep the APR down, and try to eventually get them paid off. Unfortunately like many promiscuous people, my past has finally caught up with me!

A few years ago I did a bit of swapping onto what I thought was a lifetime balance transfer of 5.4%, all was going well until my credit card statement landed on my doorstep this morning and I nearly had heart failure. At a second glance I thought this cannot be right, they've made a mistake and duly rang to tell them so. I felt smug sitting there waiting for the call to be answered, that feeling soon wore off and embarrassment took over as I was put in my place. The promotional rate was only valid for 2 years and had now expired, so the regular rate of 28.9% !!! would take effect from next month.

Panic set in because I hadn't got another card spare to tart my money off to, and there was no way I could afford to pay 5x more interest than what I had been used to. By my rough calculations it would have been equal to my current minimum payments which means I would probably never pay the darn thing off.

Thankfully Mr Homer came to the rescue this evening and we managed to shift the debt onto a new lifetime balance transfer of 6.9%, I'm gutted that it's more than what I've been paying but so thankful that it's a heck of a lot less than what I could be paying.

So lesson learnt, if you are going to be promiscuous with your credit card tarting make sure you take precautions and check the fine print before jumping into bed with a new credit card provider!