Great financing trick if you have good credit. Hope it helps someone else.

After pulling in the my first new vehicle (at age 36) I bought the 2004 Isuzu Rodeo 4x4 direct injection, with all options but leather. (I like seat covers anyway). This includes a bunch of extras like the rear plastic liner, tinted windows (beyond factory-wanted max heat reflective), and more.

I got the platinum 10 year bumper to bumper extended warrantee. A good thing, because I put some dents and hits in it the first week out. All this pushed the cost of vehicle, extras, TTL, and whatever else they could tack on to $26,270 with payments of $480/mo.

I have good credit, low rent, no debt and got a 4.59% auto loan without the "worth less now that it's off the lot" extra insurance some banks make you pay until the loan principal value is below NADA value. (Actually, less ethical banks make you pay it until you notice that you don't need to and bring it up. Same with houses.) Three payments later (with interest), my balance is about $24,700.

Then there's the point of all this. My credit card (same bank as the loan) sent me balance transfer checks at 2.9% APR for as long as it takes to pay it off. I have a 5k limit, so I called them up and asked if I could raise my limit to 25k. Later that day, I had the credit limit I needed.

I then got ready to write the check. For five minutes work, I dropped my 5-year (or 4 year, 10 month) APR from 4.6 to 2.9 (save 1.7%). Now, I can't use the card for anything else as all new charges pay the higher (4.5%) interest rate instantly, and the low interest transfer is paid off first. So I locked it in a drawer.

But wait, there's more. I set that up yesterday and when I got home, MBNA sent me an offer for 0% APR on 10k transfers for a year. Five more minutes of my time to flip 10K over (and 5 minutes to flip it back to USAA next year) and I just 'hid' or 'borrowed' 10k of money free for a year. 1 year, 10k, from 4.6% to 0% = saved $460 (minus a stamp).

I'm using excel and some guessing to come figure at this point, I have a 5-year loan at about 1.8% and about a $70/month drop in the payment. I'll keep making $500/month payments and pay it off early--saving even more interest.

I'm not going to be too greedy and flip another free 10k as the remaining balance at 2.9% is mostly free money anyway. The risk is if I don't get at least one card offer every year with 2.9% (or less) balance transfer offers.

I've worked hard to live well below my means (usually one to three roommates and a used vehicle) and always pay every bill on time, even in college. It's nice that's it finally working for me.