One of the biggest problems with any scheme to pay off credit cards by using more credit is most people do NOT change their spending habits. The average consumer will take out a home equity loan to pay off outstanding balances and then only 2 or 3 years later find themselves with a home equity loan and credit cards at their max again. That doesn't solve the problem; it makes it worse. Plus there is the potential to lose you home if you fail to make payments on the home equity loan. In my humble opinion, this is not the best solution to your problem unless you and your significant other make some changes in your spending habits. Switching from one low/no interest credit card can be very damaging to your credit score. One of the components of a credit score is how long your current accounts have been open. Longer is better. New credit cards every 6 months will lower your score which means you pay higher rates or cannot qualify for those "teaser" rates. Also, be aware that the teaser rates will escalate very rapidly if you are ever late with a payment. The solution that I suggest to the personal financial management classses I teach is to stop using credit cards for any daily expenses. Save them for emergencies (a death in the family, an earthquake destroys your house, a hurricane is coming and you have to evacuate). Concentrate on paying off one card by paying extra on that card every month but continue to make the minimum payments on every card you have. When that card is paid off, apply that payment to the next card until it is paid off. If you have trouble avoiding temptation with credit cards, put them in a ziplock bag and seal it. Put that bag in another bag and fill it with water. Put both bags in the freezer and leave it there. Anytime you need a card it is available, but you have to wait to thaw it out to use it which means you have time to think about whether or not you really, really NEED what you plan to purchase with credit. While it sounds "dorky" and simplistic, it does work. Good luck

You can get either death or disability insurance on your mortgage, or both. There's about four times the possibility of disability for an extended period that there is of death ... and, while a funeral is expensive, dead people don't eat, but disabled people do ... and may need medical/rehabilitative costs, as well. Some prefer to buy a term policy for one or both, themselves, for if the bank sets it up, they are the payee, not the person(s) purchasing the home, whle if the homeowner purchases it, they are the payee and it will be their responsibility to pay the lender. Some prefer to have coverage at a specific level throughout, rather than the decreasing value as the principal gets paid off, as usually there is little difference in premium, and as the debt is reduced through regular payment down of principal, there is some extra available to support the family in a difficult time. When paying student loan, usually one knows what portion of the payent goes for interest and which goes to pay down principal owing. But the level of mortgage payment remains level throughout, which means that in the early days of the loan, when the balance owing is high, the amount that goes to interest each year must be high, meaning that little of each payment goes to pay off principal. Many people pay little attention to the amount of principal that is paid off annually through the first few years, though many of them received a schedule showing what the ratios were at the time of each payment, throughout. They are greatly surprised when they find out how little of the principal has actually been paid, at the end of each year. They are suprised to learn that, in those early years, if they made an additional payment of an amount equal to one of the month's payment, designating it as to reduce principal only, it would reduce the balance owing by a larger amount than did all of the other 12 monthly payments. With student loans, the amount allocated to principal and to interest is more easily identifiable, I think. Good wishes. ole joyful

Here goes with my financial advice. I believe it's simpler than it sounds and just requires you to get your interest rates from all of your accounts in order to make your choices. First suggestion: do as celticmoon suggests and fix that $515K first mortgage immediately! As I'm sure you're aware, the fixed variable rates of now are worse than a year or two ago, but much better than the 12-19% that they were in the past. In my opinion, fix it now and pay for any closing costs out of your savings, which is presumably earning the worst interest rate. Speaking of....what savings rate is your $15K earning? If it's less than 9% (almost a sure bet), and you have liquidatable cash in assets (which you say you do) to cover an emergency fund, then using that cash to invest in your house is giving you a 9% rate of return in your house investment, which is far better than the 3-4% of a typical savings account. If you choose not to do that, then I present my second suggestion (which I still think you should consider, w/ or w/o the $15K in the equation) DH and I just went through a similar process, although with one house, and we paid off a motorcycle and a timeshare (each at ~9%), rather than CC debt. This plan mirrors our own, with different dollar amounts: Roll both HELOCs into one and LOCK your rate up now. In my opinion, it's only going to go up. You should be able to get a much better rate with a higher consolidation balance (we got 7.5% by consolidating our two loans along with our original HELOC). 65K + 30K = 95K = 11.9% of the first house or 19% of the second house. If you keep your loan:value ratio below 20%, you'll get a better deal on rates. You may even ben required to keep it below 20%; I'm not sure. Keep thinking about that. The next option is to add the 25K of CC debt into the HELOC figure, for a total of 65K + 30K + 25K = 120K = 15% of the first house. Close that loan and pay off the CC debt immediately. You're now transferring the 8.9% of wasted CC interest into an investment into your house, in addition to the tax writeoff. The last think to consider is to stick with the 95K HELOC option and pay off the CC bill with your assets. Are any of your stock or mutual funds giving you returns better than 9%? If so, then keep them where they are and do the 120K HELOC option. If they're earning less than 9%, then I refer you back to the concept of my second paragraph. If you take your mutual fund money that is earning less than 9% and pay down your worst mortgage/HELOC/CC rate with that, you're making a huge investment in your house. Now, if you want to sit on your stocks, that's understandable. I hope that my advice not confusing, and that it's helpful to you. Lindsay

Thanks for all the info! It was a hard step to take out that equity loan because I knew that it is eating up the house. But I really saw no other alternative. I think I will call the CC that are sending me the "interest" bills to make sure I can get them paid off in 1 sweep. [Interest on a $20 balance that is never going to get paid off? That's the problem if I can't get an exact amount on an exact date].I am hoping that by doing this we'll have more $$ to put towards the equity loan and mortgage to pay them down-even if it's only a little bit each time. I do pay all my bills online (i.e. electronically) through their websites. I found out the hard way a few yars ago that to try to set it up from my bank that even though I put in the date I wanted something paid - it wasn't until the company came and "drew" the $$ (that the bank had put a hold on) which made a few bills late-took up to 5 days. So by paying them though the company's site I get a payment date on the date I request. I didn't set up the bi-weekly mortgage though Wells Fargo (even though they were offering it free) becuase I didn't want them "holding" my $$ for 2 wks until the 2nd draw then pay to the mortgage. I now am putting it in a separate bank account and I will electronically pay it each month-with me deciding to add the extra. (And this way if I can't afford extra the $$ is there for my emergencies). [Like the $432 vet bill for one of our dogs this week-unexpected illness yuck!] RA