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Paying Off Your Credit Card Balances With Your Home Equity


December 16, 2009

How To Pay Your Credit Card Bills Faster

If you owe a lot of money on your credit card, you may be thinking of using your home equity to pay off your loans. Is this a good idea? Sometimes yes. Sometimes No. Here are the 3 primary benefits of doing so:

1. Low rates of interest.

Your home equity account interest rate will probably be at least 4 or more percent less than your credit card interest rate. This lets you keep more of your money in your pocket.

2. Pay off your loan in a shorter time period.

Since you have a lower rate of interest,, you will be able to liquidate your debt a lot quicker. For instance, let’s say that the annual interest rate on your credit card is twenty percent and you own $5,000. If you manage to pay off the balance in 12 months, you’ll have paid $5,558 total. If, however, you transfer your debt to your 5% home equity loan, you can pay this debt off in just 11 months.

3. You pay less money overall

Using the same scenario as above, with the credit card interest rate, you’ll pay $5,558. but with the lower home equity rate, you’ll only pay $5,138, nearly 9% less. And the bigger the amount of your credit card debt, the more you benefit by transferring your balance.

Should you always transfer your credit card debt to your home equity account? No. But it does help to remember that you always have options in disposing of your debt.

David Hoyer is a freelance writer who writes articles relating to chapter 7 bankruptcy information. For information on chapter 13 bankruptcy explained, bankruptcy student loans, and bankruptcy and credit report visit his site.

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