You will first need to gather the following pieces of information:

• Social Security Number (EIN for businesses)
• Driver License Number
• Employment information (address, work extension, etc.)

We recommend you download RoboForm to help you with the application process. RoboForm is one of the most secure tools to save your personal information in, as this program will automatically fill in the repetitve information needed when applying for accounts.

Once this information is gathered, you will need to allocate about 30 minutes or more of free time during the weekday morning (perferrably sometime in the beginning of the week). This is when we will start applying for credit offers.

Sign up for credit monitoring, check out the 'Helpful Tools' section for a list of credit monitoring agencies to choose from. This is an optional step but is very highly recommended and extremely useful to have. Monitoring your credit and knowing your credit score before, during and after, will allow you to understand the results of this process.

In order to get the best credit lines or even get accepted to the credit cards that you are about to apply for, you must make sure that your credit is as clean as possible. This can be achieved by:

• Paying down as much as you can on balances owed on current credit cards. If you can't pay them off completely then try to consolidate your balances into one or two credit cards. Doing this will keep the credit cards with high balances to a minimum.
• Dispute any misinformation on your credit report (here's where having signed up for credit monitoring is a good idea).
• If you're having problems clearing your credit, we recommend that you use Lexington Law - Credit Report Repair to help optimize your credit score.
• If you have no credit at all, you might want to start with getting some prepaid credit cards. These credit cards will generate credit history and will most likely raise your credit score. These cards are found in our credit cards section located in the left column.
• Please note that this 'cleaning' process might take some time for the results to show on your credit report.
  
  

As a rule of thumb; if your money isn't earning anything while sitting there, then you're doing something wrong. Think of it as $1 saved is $1.35 earned. Now this step can be worked in so many ways, and our recommendations are just that. We base our advice on the following:

Risk: Making sure that whatever BT money we use, will be deposited into accounts that have no risk in terms of loss. These accounts are FDIC insured usually up to $100,000.00 (depending on the banking institution's terms and conditions). This means that your money is guaranteed (up to the bank's limits specified) by the government in case anything ever happens to the bank.

Profitability: We find the best way to maximize your BT money. As with all things in life, changes happen. So what might be the best way today, may not be as efficient tomorrow. If you feel that there may be a better way to maximize profits from balance transfers, feel free to contribute in our forums or e-mail us.

Fees: These are a real profit killer, and the less fees the better. So our choices and strategy focus are mainly on accounts that have as few fees as possible or no fees at all. Just because you get a good rate in a bank doesn't mean that you should pay any fees that accompany that rate.

Flexibility: Why money market accounts and not savings accounts or CDs? Money market accounts allow greater flexibility with regards to accessibility of funds deposited in them. Savings accounts usually require a "minimum deposit" and impose penalties on early withdrawals. CDs also usually impose a "minimum deposit" restriction and may offer you a lower APR for smaller amounts deposited, plus let's not forget that once you're in a CD you can't get out before the maturity date without losing your profits. Money market accounts on the other hand, especially the ones that we have researched and chosen, usually have no early withdrawal fees, high APRs, and no minimum deposits. This is a great choice because, you need to be flexible in moving your money around. As stated before, changes happen, so while the best MMA now may offer 5% APR for 6 months, we can find that in a month from then, that there is another bank that is offering 6% APR. So strategically we will need to transfer money from the 5% APR bank to the 6% APR bank without incurring any restrictions on moving the money.

Now some people like to treat their MMAs as interest earning checking accounts. In terms of flexibility, we have found that opening a high interest yield checking account from Charles Schwab would be better than restricting yourself to a MMA.

Remember the rule of making your money work for you? Here's one way that you can do this. If you currently have a personal checking account and really want to keep it, try switching to one, within the same bank, that doesn't require a minimum balance. If that is not possible, it's ok we'll work around that. Now create a Charles Schwab account, move as much from your old bank account to the CS account, keep at least the minimum balance in your original checking account so as not to incur any banking fees. We will use the CS account to payoff whatever debt we owe. If you have direct deposit from your employer then now is a good time to have your salary direct deposited to this account.

If you don't mind closing your checking account for one that pays you 4% on your balances then go ahead and open the CS account.

So why open a CS account? For starters, it's one of the only banks to offer 4% APR on a checking account (notice that this is a checking and not a savings account). No minimum deposit, no monthly fees, ATM fees are reimbursed (worldwide), and you get a Schwab One brokerage account as well (if you can play the stock market well, then this is good since you can invest your profits into the stock market (please note that we said PROFITS not BALANCE TRANSFERS).

Our second account will be a money market account. The money market account(s) will be used to make our profits.We have compiled a list of the best money market accounts to invest in. That list is available via the Money Market Accounts link on the left.

Now we will start applying for credit cards that offer promotional incentives. Use the convenient link on the left labeled credit cards and apply through there. As a rule of thumb, credit cards want your business, and not the other way around. So any credit card that offers an annual fee is ok to be avoided UNLESS you can recoup the annual fee by earning a monetary gift that covers the fee or if your earned interest money will cover the fee.

Example 1: If a Visa card has a yearly fee of $45, but at the same time offers $50 credit for your first purchase made on the card. Then this card is good for the first year only (i.e. $50 credit minus $45 debit = $5 credit!)

Example 2: If a MasterCard has a yearly fee of $75 but is offering you 12 months 0% APR on a $10,000.00 credit line. And we can deposit $8,000 of those in a money market account earning 5%. Then that leaves us with a $400 profit - $75 yearly fee. This case would then be ok, since we made the yearly fee back in earned interest.

Example 3: American Express says it will waive the $125 yearly fee for the first year, and as a bonus you get 15,000 miles. These are nearly great cards since they give you free miles/points/etc., give you a year to maximize your balance transfer profits from them (sometimes in terms of both miles and 0% APR), and lastly, usually you will get a very decent credit line. The only drawback is that you'll need to cancel once the year is up or else be charged a yearly fee. Closing credit card accounts is usually not really a good thing since it decreases the total amount of credit made available to you, removes credit history and will, most likely, negatively impact your credit score. So how do we get around this? Simple, call American Express and have them transfer your credit line to another Amex card that does not charge a yearly fee. This way you are not losing the credit line and are getting rid of a card with a fee.

Be sure to apply for credit cards early in the week and in the early morning (around 9:00 EST). This method pretty much guarantees that any hard hits on your credit report, will all happen within the same day. In terms of credit ratings, this method will cause the least impact on your credit score, as opposed to several hard hits spread over a couple of days, weeks, etc. which will trigger a "WARNING: desperately seeking credit" alarm to any creditor.

Be sure to keep track of what balance transfer fees there are, if any, and when the minimum amount is due! Keeping this information handy will help you tremendously when you setup auto payment from your accounts. Look for credit cards that have a limit on balance transfer fees (example: Maximum 3% or $75 (whichever is lower) of the amount transferred. Watch out for the ones that plainly say something like 3% of the balance, no limit).

Later on when you get notice on your available credit lines. Figure out how much you would like to deposit into the money market account(s) (MMAs) that you have opened in step 3. Our suggestion is as follows:

1) As tempting as it may seem, try not to transfer the whole credit line into the MMAs. Transferring the whole credit line will decrease your credit score more rapidly, alert the CC company on high credit usage, and lastly may affect your other credit lines with other CCs. Unfortunately any balances higher than 35% of your credit line will be considered as 'high credit usage'. But here's the thing, as long as your payments are made on time, then usually the CC companies will just keep an eye on your usage rather than trigger any alarms. We like to keep it safe but effective, so try just transferring at max 90% of the BT.

2) Transfer some BT money to the CS checking account opened in step 3. Use this as a means to pay off the minimum amounts due on each CC you are using. Here's how this is effective; you want to keep as much BT money in the MMAs as possible without decreasing any amounts from them during the 0% APR promotional period (i.e. for example, a stable $1000 @ 5% for 12 months, yields $50, while an unsteady $1000 @ 5% for 12 months will yield around $35 see table below).

IMPORTANT: Log in to your accounts and setup auto bill pay to the CC company (example: $50 on the 15th of every month to Chase, $35 on the 1st of the month to Bank of America, etc.) It is very important that the money reaches the CC company on the due date. Doing this will maximize interest earned and ensure on time payment. You will notice a gradual decrease in your credit score because you are utilizing a pretty high percentage of your credit lines. Do not worry, THIS IS EXPECTED. If possible, schedule the last payment, to be the remaining balance. If you're following our recommendation in step 6, then this will be the full BT amount, if not then you'll have to calculate what the remaining BT balance would be at the end of the promotional period.

Watch your money grow, check back on your CC accounts regularly (sign up for e-mail reports) to ensure the proper payments are being made. If you signed up for credit monitoring that allows daily pulls of your credit report, then make it a habit request your credit report once everyday. This process is commonly referred to as "bumpage". Doing this will generate a lot of soft pulls, which can knock the hard pulls off of your credit report.

When the 0% APR period is coming to an end be sure to make the last payment the payoff amount of the remaining balance on the CC. Send any earnings to your Interest yield checking account. This way, you will still earn money even if it is not being used!

Check your CC accounts for 0% APR BT offers, if offered then repeat. If everything is followed correctly and you get no BT offers at the end of your term, call the CC company and request one. It never hurts to ask. Also check back at this website as we are continuously adding new credit cards to the list.