Did you know that in most credit card contracts there is a clause that means your card provider can raise the amount of interest you are paying if you simply miss or are slightly late with only one payment? You may think you are on a great low interest rate credit card account, but if you are slow in making a payment, your rate may jump to 20% or higher overnight.

Now if you have had this happen to you, one of the best things you can do is transfer the balance over to a new balance transfer credit card account, which could have a 0% interest rate for the life of the transferred amount. What this means is that you can be paying 0% interest instead of the 20% or even more you might have been paying up until now.

You will not want to do this if you use your credit card for general everyday spending though, because these cards have a high amount of interest attached to any additional spending. And this is how the credit card provider will make money from you. If you want a card for regular spending such as groceries, you can reap some great rewards from certain credit card accounts that provide low interest for your everyday spending along with an interest free period, and also rewards according to the amount you have spent.

With any credit card you need to make sure you keep up with, at the very least, the minimum monthly repayment. If you use it regularly, it is recommended that you only spend what you already have in cash and can afford on the card, and pay this amount off fully each month. This way you still benefit from the rewards for spending, but you will not get behind and owe interest on top as well.