Should I get a new credit card or transfer my old balance to a new one?

I am looking to make a couple large, immediate purchases with a credit card. I already have one credit card with very little available balance. Should I:


A. Apply for a brand new card and use it to make these new purchases?


OR


B. Transfer my old balance to a new card, then work off paying the low APR new card while putting the new purchases on the old card?|||None of the above. You should reconsider these new large purchases. Do you really NEED them? Pay off the existing credit card balance first.





You have one card close to the max and are planning getting another card and charging it up. Carrying balances of more than 30% of your available credit limit, hurts your score. It is likely that adding this additional debt will cause your score to decrease and your credit card companies could put you on the default interest rate. Your minimum payments would zoom up with the higher interest rates. Would you be able to keep up?|||It depends on what kind of interest rate on the card that you have and the interest rate on the card that you may get.





If the special rate only applies to balance transfers, then you will need to transfer the balance and make the purchases with the new card.|||If you have a plan to pay within the interest free days - a new credit card (free of yearly charges surely) will be help full.





If you are willing to pay the interest and pay in good time - then compare the balance transfer per month pay and new credit card per month pay - whichever is less - go for that. The balance transfer sometime comes with an offer of some free goodies - try to make a deal on that as well.|||Without knowing the interest rates available to you, this is a difficult question to answer. That being said, there are other options you may want to consider.





Firstly, if credit cards are the only option available to you, get a new card with a low balance transfer rate and transfer the balance. Whatever would work out in you paying the least amount of interest. This part isn't rocket science, you jsut havr to figure out how much money you will spend on credit and then figure out how to move that money between your two cards to ensure the lowest interest rate applies overall.





However; you may also want to consider a personal loan to consolidate your debt. You can wrap up your credit cards and any other outstanding credit balances (car payments or whatnot) into a loan with low interest and free up the balance on your credit card. This often works out to the same kind of interest or better than a balance transfer on a credit card.





This would eliminate all of your monthly payments and wrap them up into one slightly smaller large monthly payment for your debts. I would at that point request that the credit limit on my card be lowered just enough to cover my planned purchases and perhaps an emergency allowance.