Best way to clear CC debt

dnutt68

Hi,

I'm looking for advice on the best way to go about clearing my credit card debt. I'll give a quick history of how I got myself where I am today and hopefully someone can advise me on the best options to clear my debts from here.

I got divorced around eight years ago and took around £7k in debt out of the marriage. I was working shifts at the time, so was managing fairly well paying my maintenance and paying off my debts. Fate took a turn for the worse shortly after however. My car suffered engine failure and was basically a write off, so I purchased a new car - again it was affordable, but extended what I owed to approximately £17k.

Shortly after things got worse as I was taken off shifts due to a downturn in production and started working dayshift. This constituted about a 1/3rd reduction in my weekly wage, so you can imagine things were started to get really tight. I took the decision to consolidate my debts into one loan which helped a little, but I was still stretched and started using credit cards as a stop gap when I needed to.

This went on for a couple of years and I soon found I was really struggling to service my loan and CC debt. So I consolidated again and took out a £20k loan over 7 years (approx 4 years ago).

Since then, I have struggled on much of the time relying on Credit Cards to keep afloat.

Finally, financial pressures have started to ease somewhat, my son is now 19 and I no longer pay maintenance for him so that has helped. But I now find myself with £10k in CC debt and around £9k still owing on my loan.

I am coping quite well at the moment servicing the debt, and find I am no longer reliant on Credit Cards to get by, in fact I have a small amount of extra cash each month which is steadily clearing a long term overdraft I have had with my bank (approx £500 atm). However, I'm not getting anywhere in clearing the CC debt and am simply blowing £250 per month on the interest.

So what to do...

I don't really want to consolidate the loan I have as I have 36 payments left and I have already payed all the interest on this. So it is decreasing nicely at £300 per month. I have tried applying for another loan for £10k to clear the CC debt, but each place I try refuses me mainly because my personal unsecured debt is over £15k.

I am thinking of trying to transfer the CC debt onto 0% cards, but am unsure of whether I could get a card with a 10k limit? Or should I try and get a loan and neglect to mention I already have a loan that still has 9k to pay on it? I've even thought of trying to get a loan at a higher rate of interest just so it is at least getting paid of each month and not just wasted in interest.

It is so frustrating, I already paying more a month in interest to the CC companies than I would pay for a loan to clear them off, but its such a waste cause it doesn't even make a dent!

Any thoughts on the best path to take greatly appreciated )

poker_face

dnutt68 wrote: »

Hi,

I'm looking for advice on the best way to go about clearing my credit card debt. I'll give a quick history of how I got myself where I am today and hopefully someone can advise me on the best options to clear my debts from here.

I got divorced around eight years ago and took around £7k in debt out of the marriage. I was working shifts at the time, so was managing fairly well paying my maintenance and paying off my debts. Fate took a turn for the worse shortly after however. My car suffered engine failure and was basically a write off, so I purchased a new car - again it was affordable, but extended what I owed to approximately £17k.

Shortly after things got worse as I was taken off shifts due to a downturn in production and started working dayshift. This constituted about a 1/3rd reduction in my weekly wage, so you can imagine things were started to get really tight. I took the decision to consolidate my debts into one loan which helped a little, but I was still stretched and started using credit cards as a stop gap when I needed to.

This went on for a couple of years and I soon found I was really struggling to service my loan and CC debt. So I consolidated again and took out a £20k loan over 7 years (approx 4 years ago).

Since then, I have struggled on much of the time relying on Credit Cards to keep afloat.

Finally, financial pressures have started to ease somewhat, my son is now 19 and I no longer pay maintenance for him so that has helped. But I now find myself with £10k in CC debt and around £9k still owing on my loan.

I am coping quite well at the moment servicing the debt, and find I am no longer reliant on Credit Cards to get by, in fact I have a small amount of extra cash each month which is steadily clearing a long term overdraft I have had with my bank (approx £500 atm). However, I'm not getting anywhere in clearing the CC debt and am simply blowing £250 per month on the interest.

So what to do...

I don't really want to consolidate the loan I have as I have 36 payments left and I have already payed all the interest on this. So it is decreasing nicely at £300 per month. I have tried applying for another loan for £10k to clear the CC debt, but each place I try refuses me mainly because my personal unsecured debt is over £15k.

I am thinking of trying to transfer the CC debt onto 0% cards, but am unsure of whether I could get a card with a 10k limit? Or should I try and get a loan and neglect to mention I already have a loan that still has 9k to pay on it? I've even thought of trying to get a loan at a higher rate of interest just so it is at least getting paid of each month and not just wasted in interest.

It is so frustrating, I already paying more a month in interest to the CC companies than I would pay for a loan to clear them off, but its such a waste cause it doesn't even make a dent!

Any thoughts on the best path to take greatly appreciated )

You may get more feedback in the Debt-Free Wannabe forum

dnutt68

Ok thanks, I'll repost it there

gandolf_2

I talked to someone from http://www.credit-debt-help.co.uk its decent site with a few pages about credit card debt. Hope that helps