A Suze Orman exclusive

Transfer Notes
If you go for the transfer, you should check with both your old and new card to see if you are going to get hit with a fee for the transfer. It can be up to $50 or so.

And once you transfer, you better make sure you pay your bill on time. Realize that the minute you become a customer your credit card company is looking for any way it can to get your rate higher than zero percent. It's not exactly easy for them to make money off of you when you aren't paying any interest. One of the most devious "gotchas" they will spring on you is to rescind your zero percent interest rate if you make one payment just one day late. It's in the fine print: be late and your zero percent rate could shoot to 20 percent or more. Besides, as I have told you before, paying your bill on time is the single biggest factor in your FICO score. So it's doubly smart to pay on time. And let's make sure you're not going to try and get cute here. On time means the check arrives on the due date, not that you manage to get it mailed on the due date.

Once you have the transfer completed, do not cancel your old card account. Let's hit rewind to make sure you got that: Do Not Cancel Your Old Card. The folks who compute your FICO score love to see a long credit history. If you cancel your card, especially if you have had it for years, you are wiping out a portion of your credit history-a change that can send you FICO score south. If you are concerned you will be too tempted to use the card again, simply take out a pair of scissors and give it a haircut. You can't use it, but it still shows up in your credit history.

Your Balancing Act
If you manage to get your balance transferred to a low-rate card, before you start paying more than the minimum amount due each month-which you will need to do to get rid of your balance-take the time to do some strategizing. If you are also paying off an auto loan or student loan, those are no doubt going to have a higher interest rate than zero percent. So I would recommend thinking through whether you can get any of those loans paid off while your credit card is still carrying a zero percent interest rate. It makes more sense to pay off a 7 percent car loan than a zero percent credit card balance.

Now, if you are unable to qualify for a new low-rate card, and your card rates are higher than the rates for other debt you have, then you need to start paying down those balances ASAP.

Gather up your cards and list them in descending order of their interest rate.

Here's your plan of attack:

1. Pay the minimum on every credit card.
2. On the card with the highest interest rate, make an additional payment so you can start to chip away at the balance. Any amount will help.
3. Keep this up every month. When you have gotten rid of the balance on the card with the highest rate, move on to card with the next highest interest rate. You are to take the entire payment you were making on that first card and apply it to the second card. This is going to get the card paid off super-fast.
4. When you are done with Card #2, move on to Card #3. Repeat as necessary.

Let's get some real-life examples here. How about we start with a $5,000 credit card balance that charges 18 percent interest, and the minimum payment due is calculated at 2.5 percent. Your initial minimum payment is going to be $125. If you continue to just make the minimum payment it will take you 26 years and more than $7,000 in interest payments to get the balance paid off. But let's say you can rustle up the cash to send in an extra $50 a month over your initial minimum payment, so your total payment that first month is $175. Fifty bucks sounds too small to make much of an impact? Think again. If you can just find that extra fifty each month, you will have your balance down to zero in just over three years and your total interest costs will be under $1,600. Suddenly, getting out of credit card debt doesn't seem so impossible, does it?

Now after you have that first card paid off, I want you to take that $175 a month and add it to the minimum payment you're making on the card with the next highest interest rate. Let's say that card also has a $5,000 balance, so it too carries a $125 minimum-but the interest rate is 15 instead of 18 percent. You are going to add the $175 from Card #1 to the $125 you are already making on Card #2. That means your payments on Card #2 will be $300 a month. With that compounded approach, your balance disappears in 19 months and you will pay just $642 in interest payments.

You can calculate your own repayment schedule and total interest charges by using the Credit Card calculator at bankrate.com.

Getting rid of credit card debt is literally money in the bank. If your current rate on a card is 18 percent, you are giving yourself an 18 percent return on your money. There's no way you can get a risk-free return of that size anywhere else. Forget the stock market; your biggest money-making opportunity is in the cards.