Does anyone fund their savings account with 0% balance transfers?

[CJsoccerchic]

Re: Does anyone fund their savings account with 0% balance transfers?

I was thinking about trying to build DH credit by doing this 0% transfer. Figure he has little or bad credit - get him a credit limitof whatever the bank will give - INVEST, NOT TOUCH the money (they will transfer it to a bank account, right?) then invest in CD's or high interest bank (ING, ED. HSBC) and pay off in full 2 weeks before teh 1 year is up/ That should help his credit and give us a couple hundred dollars for essentially doing nothing. Right?

[jmjj215]

Re: Does anyone fund their savings account with 0% balance transfers?

I personally don't think that is a good idea. You are taking too much of a risk.
Most people are not disciplined enough to do that.

Credit card companies can change their terms at anytime and then you would be out of money. Getting the few extra bucks unless you are doing tens of thousands is worth it in my opinion.

Interesting sentence at the end. If there's more of a reward, then it starts to look more attractive. I'd have to agree with that. If you're doing it to make an extra $100 over a year, it wouldn't be worth it to me. But $500? I might consider.. The "too much risk" idea really only comes into play when you don't have much to fall back on. I guess I'd like to see your whole financial picture (at least a general picture) before I'd feel comfortable saying "yeah, go ahead"

[dealsaver]

Re: Does anyone fund their savings account with 0% balance transfers?

I was thinking about trying to build DH credit by doing this 0% transfer. Figure he has little or bad credit - get him a credit limitof whatever the bank will give - INVEST, NOT TOUCH the money (they will transfer it to a bank account, right?) then invest in CD's or high interest bank (ING, ED. HSBC) and pay off in full 2 weeks before teh 1 year is up/ That should help his credit and give us a couple hundred dollars for essentially doing nothing. Right?

I would do a little research on DH's credit before you start. Balance transfer investing has to be done while looking at the big picture. If you only have one credit card and you withdraw the maximum amount, your credit score should take a hit because your utilization is high. I try to keep my utilization on any one card below 90% and I only do that with one or two cards at a time. I've also developed my credit lines over time so that I can use $200,000 easily without going above 50% overall utilization. With rates rising, $10,000+/year in income is a modest expectation from my credit lines.

[dealsaver]

Re: Does anyone fund their savings account with 0% balance transfers?

I personally don't think that is a good idea. You are taking too much of a risk.
Most people are not disciplined enough to do that.

Credit card companies can change their terms at anytime and then you would be out of money. Getting the few extra bucks unless you are doing tens of thousands is worth it in my opinion.

Tree0164, please detail what risk you think is involved here. Certainly there is risk to your credit score if you don't proceed properly. Outside of that, what risks do you see? If a card company revoked a 0% offer for whatever reason, you would just pay the card off with the money you had deposited in a federally insured bank account.