Can I use balance transfer to buy car?
"It really depends on the exact wording of that zero rate offer.  Some specifically state they are to be used for paying other debt. Others will have wording such as ""pay other debt or write yourself a check to pay for that next vacation, or new furniture.""  Sorry, it's back on you to check this out in advance." "You do not say what country you are in. This is an answer for readers in the UK. Most normal balance transfer deals are only for paying off other credit cards. However there are ""money transfer"" deals that will pay the money direct to your bank account. The deals aren't as good as balance transfer deals but they are often a competitive option compared to other types of borrowing.  Another option depending on how much you need to borrow and your regular spending habits is to get a card with a ""0% for purchases"" deal and use that card for your regular shopping, then put the money you would have spent on your regular shopping towards the car."
"Any one of your three options is viable and has its advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I would go for the used option, but I am can-do kind of person. If you don't like micro-managing a car, you may prefer leasing. A new car is sort of the middle of the road option. Leasing will be most expensive and most liability. If you have an accident, the leasing arrangements are designed to extract money from you... heavily. Even a minor accident can require you to pay for expensive repairs, usually much more expensive than if you had your own car fixed. So, not only will you pay more per month, but your accident liability will be a lot higher. With your own car, you will need to sell it (or bring it back to the UK) obviously. A used car will be the cheapest option. A non-descript used car from the local area can also make you ""blend in"" and be less like to be targeted by a criminal as an outsider. As long as you stay away from dealers and buy the car from a private person of good reputation, you have an odds-on chance of getting a decent car. Make sure you check out the person and make sure they are ""real"". Some dealers, called ""curbstoners"", try to pretend to be original owners. You can always spot such frauds because the title will be new. Make sure the same owner has had the car for at least 3-4 years and that it says that on the title. Also, try to buy from somebody who is financially well off--they have less reason to try to screw you. Students, people under 30 and working class are bad people to buy from. Married professionals over age 35 are the right kind of person to buy from." I am sure everyone is different, but it has helped me a great deal. I have had several card balances go up and the interest on those per month was more than $200 in just interest combined.  I transferred the balances over to 0% for 15 months – with a fee, so the upfront cost was about $300. However, over the next 15 months at 0% I'm saving over $200 each month.  Now I have the money to pay everything off at 14 months. I will not be paying any interest after that, and I cut up all of my cards so I won't rack up the bills with interest on them anymore. Now, if I can't buy it with a debit card or cash, I don't get it.  My cards went up so high after remodeling a home so they were justified. It wasn't because I didn't pay attention to what I could afford.  My brother, on the other hand, has trouble using credit cards properly and this doesn't work for him. Edited in response to JoeTaxpayer's comment and OP Tim's additional question. To add to and clarify a little what littleadv has said, and to answer  OP Tim's next question: As far as the IRS is concerned, you have at most one Individual Retirement Account of each type (Traditional, Roth) though the money in each IRA can be invested with as many different custodians (brokerages, banks, etc.) and different investments as you like. Thus, the maximum $5000 ($6000 for older folks) that you can contribute each year can be split up and invested any which way you like, and when in later years you take a Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from a Traditional IRA, you can get the money by selling just one of the investments, or from several investments; all that the IRS cares is that the total amount that is distributed to you is at least as large as the RMD. An important corollary is that  the balance in your IRA is the   sum total of the value of all the investments that various custodians are holding   for you in IRA accounts. There is no loss in an IRA until every penny has been withdrawn from every investment in your IRA and  distributed to you, thus making your IRA balance zero.  As long as you have a positive balance, there is no loss: everything has to come out. After the last distribution from your Roth IRA (the one that empties your entire Roth IRA, no matter where it is invested and reduces your Roth IRA balance (see definition  above) to zero), total up all the amounts that you have received as  distributions from your Roth IRA. If this is less  than the total amount of money you contributed to your Roth IRA  (this includes rollovers from a Traditional IRA or Roth 401k  etc., but not the earnings within the Roth IRA that you re-invested inside the Roth IRA), you have a loss that can be deducted on Schedule A as a Miscellaneous Deduction subject to the 2% AGI limit. This 2% is not a cap (in the sense that no more than 2% of your AGI can be deducted in this category)  but rather a threshold: you can only deduct whatever part of your total Miscellaneous Deductions exceeds  2% of your AGI. Not many people have Miscellaneous Deductions whose total exceeds 2% of their AGI, and so they end up not being able to deduct anything in this category. If you ever made nondeductible contributions to your  Traditional IRA because you were ineligible to make a  deductible contribution (income too high, pension plan  coverage at work etc), then the sum of all these contributions is your basis in your  Traditional IRA. Note that your deductible contributions, if any, are not part of the basis.  The above rules apply to  your basis in your Traditional IRA as well.  After the last distribution from your Traditional IRA (the one that empties  all your Traditional IRA accounts and reduces your Traditional IRA balance to zero), total up all the distributions that you received (don't forget to include the nontaxable part of each distribution that represents a return of the basis). If the sum total is less than your basis, you have a loss that can be deducted on Schedule A as a Miscellaneous  Deduction subject to the 2% AGI threshold. You can only deposit cash into an IRA and take a distribution in cash from an IRA. Now, as JoeTaxpayer points out, if your IRA owns stock, you can take a distribution by having the  shares transferred from your IRA account in your brokerage to your personal account in the brokerage.  However, the amount of the distribution, as reported by the brokerage to the IRS, is the value of the shares transferred as of the time of the transfer, (more generally  the fair market value of the property that is transferred out of the IRA) and this is the amount you report on your income  tax return. Any capital gain or loss on those shares remains inside the IRA because your basis (in your personal account) in the  shares that came out of the IRA is the amount of the distribution.  If you sell these shares at a later date, you will have a (taxable) gain or loss depending on whether you sold the shares for more or less than your basis. In effect, the share transfer transaction is as if you sold the shares in the IRA, took the proceeds as a cash distribution and immediately bought the same shares in your personal account, but you saved the transaction fees for the sale and the purchase and avoided paying the  difference between the buying and selling price of the shares as well as any changes in these in the microseconds that would have elapsed between the execution of the sell-shares-in-Tim's-IRA-account, distribute-cash-to-Tim, and buy-shares-in-Tim's-personal account transactions.  Of course, your broker will likely charge a fee for transferring ownership of the shares from your IRA to you.  But the important point is that any capital gain or loss within the IRA cannot be used to offset a gain or loss in your taxable accounts.  What happens inside the IRA stays inside the IRA. It's my understand that leasing is never the better overall deal, with the possible exception of a person who would otherwise buy a brand new car every 2 or 3 years, and does not drive a lot of miles. Note: in the case of a company car, Canadian taxes let you deduct the entire lease payment (which clearly has some principal in it) if you lease, while if you buy you can only deduct the interest, and must depreciate the car according to their schedule. This can make leasing more attractive to those buying a car through a corporation. I don't know if this applies in the US. The numbers you ran through in class presumably involved calculating the interest paid over the term of the loan. Can you not just redo the calculation using actual interest and lease numbers from a randomly chosen current car ad? I suspect if you do, you will discover leasing is still not the right choice. To confirm: you say you have credit card debt of $18,000 with min. repayment of $466.06, plus on top of this you are also paying off a car loan and another personal loan. From my calculations if your monthly interest on your credit card is $237, the interest on your credit card should be about 15.8% p.a. Is this correct? Balance Transfer If you did a balance transfer of your $18,000 to a new credit card with 0% for 14 months and keep your repayments the same ($466) you would have saved yourself a bit over $3020 in interest over those 14 months. Your credit card balance after 14 months would be about $11,471 (instead of $14,476 with your current situation). If your interest after the 14 months went back to 15.8%  you would be able to pay the remaining $11,471 in 2.5 more years (keeping repayments at $466), saving 10 months off your repayments and a total of $4,781 in interest over 3 years and 8 months. The main emphasis here is that you are able to keep your repayments at least the same so you are able to pay off the debt quicker, and that your interest rate on the new credit card after the 14 months interest free is not more than your current interest rate of 15.8%. Things you should be careful about if you take this path: Debt Consolidation In regards to a Debt Consolidation for your personal loan and credit card (and possibly your car loan) into a single lower interest rate loan can be a good idea, but there are some pitfalls you should consider. Manly, if you are taking out a loan with a lower interest rate but a longer term to pay it off, you may end up paying less in monthly repayments but will end up paying more interest in the long run. If you do take this course of action try to keep your term to no longer than your current debt's terms, and try to keep your repayments as high as possible to pay the debt off as soon as possible and reduce any interest you have to pay. As you already have you credit card and personal loan with CBA talk to them to see what kind of deal they can give you. Again be wary of the fine print and read the PDS of any products you are thinking of getting. Refer to ASIC - Money Smart website for more valuable information you should consider before taking out any debt consolidation. Other Action You Can Take If you are finding that the repayments are really getting out of hand and no one will help you with any debt consolidation or reducing your interest rates on your debts, as a last resort you can apply for a Part 9 debt agreement. But be very careful as this is an alternative to bankruptcy, and like bankruptcy a debt agreement will appear on your credit file for seven years and your name will be listed on the National Personal Insolvency Index forever. Further Assistance and Help If you have trouble reading any PDS, or want further information or help regarding any issues I have raised or any other part of your financial situation you can contact Centrelink's Financial Information Service. They provide a free and confidential service that provides education and information on financial and lifestyle issues to all Australians. Either approach will put a strain on your friendship, unless you are willing to treat it as a gift which may or may not be returned rather than a loan. I agree that paying it direct to the dealer (or giving her a check that is made out to the dealer) avoids the risk of the money getting sidetracked. Not long after college in my new job I bought a used car with payments, I have never done that since. I just don't like having a car payment. I have bought every car since then with cash. You should never borrow money to buy a car There are several things that come into play when buying a car. When you are shopping with cash you tend to be more conservative with your purchases look at this Study on Credit card purchases.   A Dunn & Bradstreet study found that people spend 12-18% more when using credit cards than when using cash. And McDonald's found that the average transaction rose from $4.50 to $7.00 when customers used plastic instead of cash.  I would bet you if you had $27,000 dollars cash in your hand you wouldn't buy that car. You'd find a better deal, and or a cheaper car. When you finance it, it just doesn't seem to hurt as bad. Even though it's worse because now you are paying interest.  A new car is just insanity unless you have a high net worth, at least seven figures. Your $27,000 car in 5 years will be worth about $6500. That's like striking a match to $340 dollars a month, you can't afford to lose that much money. Pay Cash If you lose your job, get hurt, or any number of things that can cost you money or reduce your income, it's no problem with a paid for car. They don't repo paid for cars. You have so much more flexibility when you don't have payments. You mention you have 10k in cash, and a $2000 a month positive cash flow. I would find a deal on a 8000 - 9000 car I would not buy from a dealer*. Sell the car you have put that money with the positive cash flow and every other dime you can get at your student loans and any other debt you have, keep renting cheap keep the college lifestyle (broke) until you are completely out of debt. Then I would save for a house.  Finally I would read this Dave Ramsey book, if I would have read this at your age, I would literally be a millionaire by now, I'm 37. *Don't buy from a dealer Find a private sale car that you can get a deal on, pay less than Kelly Blue Book. Pay a little money $50 - 75 to have an automotive technician to check it out for you and get a car fax, to make sure there are no major problems. I have worked in the automotive industry for 20 + years and you rarely get a good deal from a dealer. “Everything popular is wrong.”         Oscar Wilde "I'd lean toward using the $3,000 from the emergency fund although depending on your monthly bills, a $2,000 emergency fund (or even a $5,000 one) may be a bit small. But here are a couple of other options for you: Zero-interest balance transfers: If you have cards and have a zero balance on them, your credit card companies are keen to see you put a balance on them. Find out if they're offering any ""12 months no interest on balance transfers"" offers (or if any of their rivals is), since of course the car loan is an outstanding balance you can transfer (you're not asking them for cash). Put the $3,000 on that zero-balance transfer option, get rid of the car, and pay the $300/mo to pay down the balance on the card. 10 months later, two months before the end of the free period, you're at zero again — without dipping into your emergency fund. You'll also now have a history with that card company of paying back, which may lead them to attempt to entice you to go into more debt (which you'll resist, of course) by increasing the limit. (If you don't want a higher limit, just tell them to reduce it again.) A $3,000 unsecured loan with no pre-payment penalty provided the math works out. The interest may be expensive (unless you find something with a teaser rate for the first X months), but if you find an option, do the math on it to see if it's actually more expensive than carrying the car payments, insurance, etc. on a depreciating asset. It may not be as expensive as the 20% rate or whatever makes it sound (but again, do the math), and if you apply your $300/mo to it, within (say) 11 months you're clear again — with a nice little paid-back loan on your credit report. Both of these ensure that you still have your emergency fund at your disposal, and both capitalize on the fact that right now, you're probably a good credit risk. If you dip into your emergency fund, and an emergency happens (like loss of a job) and you find yourself short of funds, you may have trouble securing further credit at that point to cover the gap in your emergency fund."