Vacation time!

I'm officially done with my last job and don't start my new job until May 1st so that means I have about 2 weeks of much needed vacation time. I would love to pick up and go on a road trip or small vacation but I still have my accounting class that I have to go to twice a week. That's o.k. though because it will help me not spend money on hotels or gas and I live in southern California where it shouldn't be hard to find fun things to do close by.

I got my last check yesterday so I am filthy rich. Well, not really but I am not sure what I should do with the money. All of my bills are paid for the next month and I have about $1,000 left over. I'll need to keep some money around for food and gas as well as other random expenses. Normally I would put any excess towards my credit card but I'm not sure when the next time I will see a paycheck will be. I think for the time being I will put the majority of it in my savings account and count it towards the debt reduction total and if for some reason I need it I will be able to still have access to the money. So don't panic if you see the debt totals rise. It doesn't mean that I've gone on a wild shopping spree with my credit card; it just means that I've had to dip into savings until my next paycheck at my new job.

In other news, I've decided to revive my failed attempts at making money off of the 0% balance transfer offers I receive all of the time. When I had tried this venture before I had received an offer for 0% interest on the balance transfer until a specific date. That is why it was so frustrating when they were taking their sweet time to transfer the money to me because every week they stalled I was losing out on the time I could be accruing interest on the money. Well last week I received another one of those offers in the mail except this time the offer was for 0% interest on the balance transfer for 6 billing cycles. I thought at least this way if they tried to delay the transfer, the time when I owed the money would be pushed back as well. The offer said I could do it all online so I logged onto my account and noticed another offer:

0% interest for 6 billing cycles and NO TRANSFER FEE

Woot! I was even more excited about this because that would save me $75 and make all of the money I earned as interest truly free money because it required no initial investment from me. But when I'm filling out the transfer form it asks me for the address of the bank. I wasn't sure what to put here. Could they mean the branch office? Or the corporate office? Or some other office address? So I call them and the customer service rep quickly says she can take care of the balance transfer for me. The catch is though that she doesn't show that the 0% interest for 6 billing cycles and no transfer fee offer is available to my account. Ummm, that's weird because I was looking at it on my computer screen at that very moment. She can't offer any explanation but says that I can call back later and ask them to waive the fee. I laugh at this because we all know that once the credit card companies have their claws in you there is no way they are going to go out of their way to make your life easier. So I decline and tell her I would rather do it all online where I can avoid paying the balance transfer fee at all. She pauses a moment and asks if she can put me on hold...I got all tingly because you know whenever they put you on hold they are simply pretending like they are going to ask their supervisor if they can do something "special" for you. Just as I suspected after a minute had passed she got back on the phone and said that she could waive the fee right then and there. Yeah!

I also decided to sign up for a savings account at HSBC because their rates are way higher than ING Direct. HSBC's rates are at 4.5% while ING is stuck at only 4%. I have had no problems with ING but a half a point of interest could mean as much as $10 more per month on my balance transfer.

Overall, I think it will be a good deal. I'll get to keep the money longer, I won't have to pay a balance transfer fee and I'll be earning at a higher interest rate. Overall I hope to earn $88 per month for 5 months all for doing nothing (except for taking a hit on my credit score for having a large amount of credit).