@Spoon: I’d probably only use a secondary savings account to build up a lump payment w/ interest on a large and long term debt like a car or house. For a one year pay-off like this consolidated loan, probably not. I’m not that dedicated

The student loan I expect would be the same deal as this consoldated loan – one year or so to pay it off outright.

@Mr.Sparkle-san
Yup, I shopped around and while I would have got lower interest rates at Kiwibank, it would have meant switching to Mastercard, which wasn’t too appealing. I stuck with National (who dropped the rate slightly and the loan setup fee) and dropped interest rates across the board by at least 4% (excluding my low-interest Visa, where I dropped by about 0.75%)

Given that the plan is to have this paid in one year, I actually wouldn’t mind paying a percent or two extra. The main thing for me was finally being able to see in one place where I’m at and how far I have to go, so now there’s a real sense of having a goal to aim for

@Ant
cheers dude. I took advantage of the bank deals they were offering at the time. If you’ve got a credit card debt, shop around for a balance transfer – kiwibank were offering 4.99% for the first 6 months for example. Of course this turned out to be a bit more than a balance transfer

Cheers,
Ants.

@Ra: did you have a look at the different debts that you had before, because quite often the interest rate will vary wildly on them. No point in consolidating debt at a higher interest rate