Need some advice please

svt2000

Hello everyone

I am not sure which route to take. I have credit cards debt of £12000
Do I take a bank loan out (if I can get one)
or do I do the cedit card shuffle?

I am self employed have been for a year. Incurred these debts while I was employed and then able to manage to pay payments every month paying a bit more on the card which had the most on it and gradually getting them down but now I am struggling to do this as my monthly income isn't always the same. I already have one bank loan at 6.9% over five years for £10,000 I can't get it topped up to cover these other debts.

Any advice would be appreciated

tattooed_lady

Hi Steven and welcome to MSE! :hello:

Why don't you list down all your debts with APR's and also a SOA (statement of affairs) so we can see if we can help?

fairylights_2

I'd avoid taking another loan like the plague!

If you can, do the credit card shuffle - it'll mean a bit of work in the short term, but we found not getting MORE cards meant there was no spare credit to spend. Removes the temptation that you'd get if you suddenly had £10k available on your cards because you'd whacked it all on a loan.

Good luck getting debt free! :beer:

ps You're not paying payment protection insurance are you? might not cover you if you're selfemployed ... that would make a difference to your monthly payments ...

Petal_3

Hi there

I would say it depends on how long you think it will take you to pay it off. I have around the same amount of cc debt which will take me a couple of years to clear. I didn't want to continually be worried about when my 0% deal was ending and whether I'd get accepted/get the right credit limit on a new card to BT to. At the time there was a 3.9% Life of Balance offer from Texaco which I was accepted for so put half the debt on a card in my name and half on a card in my OH's name. I'm in the position of being able to pay off more than the min. payment each month which will increase when a 5 year loan finishes in 3 months. I worked out the other day that if I only paid the min. payments on this amount it would take 23 years to pay off....how scary is that? :eek:

Anyhow, going back to what I was saying - I think it might be worthwhile looking for a good Life of Balance deal on a cc....I think Amex is offering 4.9% (sadly, the Texaco one is now closed to new custom). At least you then know that all your debt is on the lowest % and you can then transfer some out at 0% if along the way you get accepted for 0% cards.

Hope this helps.
Good Luck!
x

svt2000

Thank you for all your advice.

I will list my cc debts with APR