Moving credit card balances: good idea or bad move?

I have 30k in credit card debt, which I keep transferring to low rate and zero percent cards. Now, I have too many credit cards showing on my credit report. How does transferring balances impact my credit score? I don't have enough money to pay off the cards, but I am trying to pay more than minimum every month. Please advise.

For someone who is working hard to pay down credit card debt, zero percent cards can be a great idea. Instead of paying down debt at 13 percent or higher, there are no interest charges. What's not to love?

The problem is that it is too easy to get lazy. When balances are carried on zero percent cards, people don't try as hard to pay them off and debt is often carried for a very long time. That isn't a reason to avoid the cards, but it is something you should keep in mind.

Plus, the zero percent offers are often only good for relatively short periods of time, usually a year. That means that you need to move your balances frequently. As you have found, the end result can be a large number of cards on your credit report.

But what effect does serially using zero percent cards have on your credit score?

If you play by the rules and dutifully make all minimum required payments, there will likely not be a significant long-term negative impact on your credit score. However, you do need to watch your credit utilization ratio, which is the percent of your available credit that is currently being used. High credit utilization ratios will negatively impact your credit score and you might have a high utilization ratio if you keep transferring balances to new cards where you routinely use almost your entire credit limit. (One way to keep the ratio down is to have multiple cards open, but already having a lot of credit available can negatively impact your ability to get approved for major loans like a mortgage or a car loan so you need to be careful there too.)

Probably the best thing you can do is commit to a very aggressive payment schedule and try to get the debt eliminated as quickly as you possibly can. I would also plan to not use any of your cards until all of the debt is paid off.

Finally, remember that these zero percent offers often come with a very strict set of rules. Break one rule, like missing a payment deadline by even one day, and you will see your rate skyrocket. Also, zero percent cards frequently come with very large transfer fees so be careful to read the fine print on any offer you are considering.