Has anyone experienced these before? If you have where did you find your loan from? I am looking to combine about 13K in debt into one payment, but finding it hard to get a company to consolidate everything and do it at an affordable interest rate.
When I had debt at unpleasant interest rates, I would always be on the lookout for credit cards that had specials where for a certain period of time (usually one year) they would offer 0% interest on balance transfers. I was very disciplined. I did not add additional credit and I kept an eye on the situation and when I knew the 0% interest rate was about to expire, I would find another credit card that would offer the same thing. I suppose it was probably a pain to keep having to switch credit cards, but once you get hooked on 0% interest, it seem outrageous to pay interest. At this point, I pay off my credit card(s) every month no matter how much it kills me, so I never pay interest on credit cards.
I've done debt consolidation, but I would never want to do it for $13,000 unless it was on a 0% credit card. I don't think I've ever tried to consolidate more than $5,000 at a time. I've done it through a loan and there have been times that I've done consolidating on credit cards. If your payment to that one creditor on $13,000 is going to be close or the same as it would be to the numerous creditors, you'd do better paying the numerous ones in my opinion. Just keep those lines of credit open with them and build a payment history with them.
Would you consider trying a credit union in your area. They are much easier to get money from. Go in and open an account. The only thing about a credit union is they probably want you to show some deposit history with them. Maybe after a month of weekly deposits they may give you the money. I think they are a great shot. You do not have to go though all the red tape. We had a financial disaster and could not get funding to consolidate anywhere. My bank that I gave all my money to for 20 years would not help us. We went to the local credit union who were never did business with and after one month they helped us. It is worth you giving this a shot. I now, will stay with the credit union for all my borrowing needs.
I have looked into these before when I had a lot of debt. Most all of them did not pan out or look to be beneficial. I even asked money advisers and they said stay away from them. So my next step was I read the book Total Money Make Over By Dave Ramsey and it changed my life.
These are tricky because what winds up happening is that all your other loans/debt ends up paid off...but has available credit after the consolidation, leaving you to go back and rack up big bills again. It's important it understand that if you choose to go this way, that the other avenues of credit cannot be used again...or you end up in worse shape than you were to start out with. A better way to get out of debt is to prioririze your debt and pay off small balances first, then moving up toward the larger ones. It's called snowballing.
Debt consolidation is one of the finest way to wrap up all your debt in one payment, but it becomes hard to to find such companies because most of the other lenders don't want to collide their payment with others.
I have not had luck with consolidation and could use something similar myself at this point. What are some other suggestions for dealing with large amounts of unsecured debt?
I have never had a debt consolidation loan before, but I had got the same effect by applying for two zero interest credit cards to put a bit of the debt onto (by spending on them and then putting my wages towards paying my loans back). I managed to get myself out of debt, and then kept changing the cards to better deal ones until the balance on them were gone. I'm almost done now. The ones I have are zero percent interest until April 2014, by which time they will both be cleared. I think debt consolidation is a great idea. There's no point spending more interest than you can afford on anything. You might also find that if you're struggling to keep up with the payments, you could make a call to the company and ask whether they would be prepared to freeze your account and work out a payment plan. They would still be making money from you, as you will have paid some interest, it will just be a little more more controllable.
Be careful with these. If they negotiate a lower amount owed, the company you owe can then sell your debt and you will still be getting collection calls. Also on the credit report, it will impact your score. However, if you are late and your credit is bad anyway, they can really help get your interest rates down and consolidate things so you can actually get them paid off. Just be careful. Check the BBB rating and get referrals. There are a lot of companies out there that do not really help.
