Generate Extra FREE Money Using Credit Cards!
Is There Really Free Money?

Our Insider Credit Card Tips - Part 1

Most likely you have seen these offers filling up your mailboxes, credit card companies enticing you to use their cards with incredibly low interest rates, many even as low as 0% APR. Borrow money for free? Too good to be true. Must be a catch. Well, not if you know how to play the credit card game.

Free Money. You can make major bucks off of other people’s money. Sure, it’s easy to make $100 with a quickie signup bonus, anyone can do that. But with this strategy, you can make hundreds if not over a thousand dollars with just one card. Over the next three issues, we'll show you different strategies to use credit cards to your advantage and actually make money for FREE! These strategies have already been put to the test and passed with flying colors!

There are plenty of reasons for borrowing money for free. The most obvious is to pay down debts with high interest rates - car loans, home-equity loans, other credit cards. In each case, you would be saving the interest you would be otherwise paying on those loans. That saved interest is money in your pocket.

Say you have another debt at 12% and you obtain a balance transfer card with a fixed 0% interest rate for 12 months. You basically borrow from the 0% card and transfer the balance of your 12% card to the 0% card, saving you 12%! For every $10,000 in debt, that's an extra $1,200 a year you'd put into YOUR pocket!

You can earn money by doing practically nothing. Big banks these days are paying around 5% interest on your deposits. If you get a credit card with 0% interest for 12 months, with a credit line of $10,000, it's as if you just received a FREE loan for 12 months! You borrow $10,000 free for a year, keep the $500 interest, and then repay the $10,000 back at the end of the year! There's nothing to buy, nothing to sell...NO HASSLES and takes an ounce of time! You're just repositioning the money from your credit card company and to your bank. You don't even need any of your own money!

All major financial institutions use these kinds of strategies to make the most of depositors' money! For example, before the weekend, they send off their assets to an offshore financial institution where they make more interest on the assets they have on the books! Even though it's only 2 days, imagine how even one point on billions of dollars would translate into extra earned money for them. We're basically playing the same game with their generous 0% credit card offers! Why keep a low balance on a 0% card when you can make money off it!

So...What's the catch?

Credit card companies are not philanthropists looking to hand out free money to everyone! They are highly profitable corporations with one common goal - to make as much money from as many people as possible. They use the 0% for a fixed period of time as a way to lure consumers into applying for their credit cards, so that if you don't pay off your balance on time, they'll start charing you interest. They'll even offer conveniences like no paperwork applications, instant approval, and online account management among others, to lure non-holders to apply and entice credit card holders to frequently use their cards. Those who do not base their research on finance-based companies like lovemoney may think that they're plucking savings as they use their cards only to find out that their accumulating interest instead. A LOT of interest! They want you to transfer as much of your debt as possible so that when the introductory period runs out, they start making huge returns on your debts. This is a way to guarantee their profitability for a very long time!

Here's some points you must remember when playing this credit card game:

1. Always make your minimum monthly payments on time. If you're late one time, you'll forfeit your introductory 0% rate and will be charged the maximum possible rate, per the agreement you signed at the time you applied for the credit card. Credit card companies love it when you pay late. They slap you with a late fee, then this gives them the excuse to jack your rate up into the high teens to over 20% rate in some cases. They now classify you ask "high risk" because you forgot to pay your bills on time. And now they make even more off your money! This holds true with any standard credit card. If you're at a 12% interest rate and you're late once, they can use this as excuse to increase your rate up to 20% or more! Never make a late payment with credit cards! There are lots of tools to remind you about payments and some cards will set up automatic payments. Tip: You can try calling the card issuer and pleading your case. If you have good payment history with them, they may remove the late fees and reverse the finance charges. Odds are, they'll reverse both these fees. Or in the rare occasion that you didn't receive your bill, explain the situation and they'll be willing to reverse those fees.

2. Put it on the calendar far in advance of the expiration of your introductory period. Paying off your entire balance before the 0% turns into 18% is a must! Remember that our goal was to simply make money off this borrowed money. By the end of the 12 months, you should've made an easy profit and can repeat this process again on a new 0% card.

3. Opening and applying for credit cards can affect your credit rating so if you are in a situation where you need a perfect score, you may want to wait. This strategy will affect your credit rating in 3 ways. First, you'll have an inquiry for each card you apply for. A couple of inquiries every 6 months or so isn't' so bad. I recently applied for several credit cards within a one-month period and I only saw a 5 or 10 point drop in my fico score. Second, Fair Isaac also looks at how "seasoned" your credit lines are. The older the better. Since you're applying for a new card, this will lower the average "age" of your credit. Third, carrying a balance on any card over 50% of the credit limit will lower your score. My recommendation is to have LEAP in place before executing these strategies. This way, you know you're set on your mortgage and other debts, and won't need financing for a while. During this time, you can earn extra easy income with very little effort! When you pay off your balance, your credit score wil go back up.

4. Be careful and read the fine print in the terms section. Some cards will charge you a 3% balance transfer fee that's capped around $75. If you need to pay the $75, then that just takes away from your profits. Using the $10,000 limit example, you'd make $425, instead of $500. This assumes a 5% annual rate on your $10,000. Go to www.insidercreditcards. com for our recommendations on the best balance transfer cards to use. In Part 2, of this 3 part series, we'll show you how to implement this strategy. You'll also learn how you can pull cash out of a credit card without paying any of those hefty cash advance fees.

In part 3, we'll show you how to borrow money for free, without paying it back until you're ready.

Credit card offers are constantly changing, go to www.insidercreditcards.com for the most current featured offers.

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