Use 0% CC for Student Loans

[Bades]

So I get all these Credit Card offers in the mail for 0% interest for like crazy amounts of time, usually 18 months.

I fortunately do not have debt, but my gf who I live with has a lot of Student Loans (50k). She has about 10k that is around 6.5%. She pays a little over $500 a month on Student Loans already. She is able to save a few dollars each month, and her EF is almost where it needs to be, so she can start contributing more to the loans.

Would it be a dumb move on my part to open one of the credit cards and alleviate some of those high interest loans? I'm fairly confident I could get a decent credit limit (5k-10k). I'm assuming however if I had a 5k limit and bought out 5k of her loans that would then hurt my credit score?

I'm just trying to think of a few ways to alleviate some of these higher interest loans.

**For future consideration, after marriage**

[jpg7n16]

Would it be a dumb move on my part to open one of the credit cards and alleviate some of those high interest loans?

Yes. Incredibly. Why on earth are you thinking of incurring personal debt for your gf? Why doesn't she do this herself?

I would think it through if this was your wife, but it's not.

The math doesn't matter. There's no way I would do this.

[disneysteve]

Yes. Incredibly. Why on earth are you thinking of incurring personal debt for your gf? Why doesn't she do this herself?

I would think it through if this was your wife, but it's not.

The math doesn't matter. There's no way I would do this.

I agree 100%!

Absolutely do not turn her debt into your debt. You are not married. Your finances are not joint. You do not have any legal or moral obligation to pay her loans for her. If the relationship ends, guess what would happen? She'd go on her merry way and you'd be stuck with the debt.

Also, you are correct that you don't want to get a 5K credit line and use all 5K. You should never charge more than about 30% of your credit line. So if you can only get a 5K line, you wouldn't want to charge more than $1,500. It isn't enough to be worth doing anyway.

[bjl584]

Bad move. Don't even think about doing that. If this was your student loans that you were talking about, then this may be a good strategy, but don't even think about doing something like this for someone that you aren't even married to.

[Bades]

These are the responses I thought I would get - don't worry - the situation is more hypothetical or for a future use. We plan on getting married in the near future and was thinking of ways to battle this debt efficiently.

Aside from the bad idea of taking on someone else's debt - is it a good idea financially speaking?

Even though I don't have debt I was thinking - If I qualify for a 10k card I could put like $3,500 on it for 18 months and put that $3,500 into my HY Savings to accumulate interest or put into a CD, whatever it may be.

[bjl584]

These are the responses I thought I would get - don't worry - the situation is more hypothetical or for a future use. We plan on getting married in the near future and was thinking of ways to battle this debt efficiently.

Aside from the bad idea of taking on someone else's debt - is it a good idea financially speaking?

Even though I don't have debt I was thinking - If I qualify for a 10k card I could put like $3,500 on it for 18 months and put that $3,500 into my HY Savings to accumulate interest or put into a CD, whatever it may be.

Aside from taking on someone else's debt, then yes, this can be an effective way to pay off your SL's as long as you are able to pay of the CC before the 0% interest ends.

[Bades]

Aside from taking on someone else's debt, then yes, this can be an effective way to pay off your SL's as long as you are able to pay of the CC before the 0% interest ends.

Okay cool - I have a large savings for EF/house to fall back on incase things got bad.

[JoshuaHeckathorn]

Aside from taking on someone else's debt, then yes, this can be an effective way to pay off your SL's as long as you are able to pay of the CC before the 0% interest ends.

I agree - if you manage the process responsibly, you can definitely save some money on interest charges by using 0% interest credit card promotions. It's a bit risky, but it sounds like you have a good idea of how to make it work. Just make sure you get those balances paid off about a month before the 0% promotion ends. Don't risk cutting it close. And pay close attention to your credit utilization too so you don't let it rise above 30% or so.

[disneysteve]

Okay cool - I have a large savings for EF/house to fall back on incase things got bad.

If you have large savings, why not just pay off the loan?