Hi Shelley,
Should you go the credit card route, which is a dubious one, there are a few things you should know with regards to the way balance transfers work.
1. Don't be fooled by offers for purchase interest rates along with low interest balance transfer rates, this is to get you using the card and building up a balance on it. Most low purchase interest rate offers on credit cards are only for the first 3 months. People fall into the habit of spending on the card during this time, and then once the 3 months is up, you get clobbered with the normal interest rate, forgetting that it only lasted 3 months.
2. If you do a balance transfer to the credit card, do NOT do anything else with that card, even if the credit card is offering a low purchase interest rate. Use it to just pay off the debt transferred, with the low interest rate offered. As soon as you purchase something on the card, that amount will begin accrueing interest each month until you have cleared off the balance transfer amount, as your monthly payments will pay off the lowest interest rate first!
3. Be wary of balance transfer fees and minimum spends required to secure the balance transfer rate offered, these are ALWAYS exempt of the balance transfer rate, and begin accrueing interest immediately, and the fee amount will always be kept seperate from the balance transfer amount. Again, all payments made to the credit card will clear off the lowest interest rate first (the balance transfer) and the fee amount will be classed as a seperate balance, accrueing interest at the normal purchase rate on the credit card until the balance transfer amount has been paid off in full. This is how banks make their money on balance transfers. Unless ofcourse you do a balance transfer without a fee, which are very rare.
Hope this information is helpful :)