Loan - where best for consolidation?

thebyp

Hi All,

I'm looking for a little advice as to where I should look for a loan. I haven't applied anywhere at all, but know my bank won't lend as they looked at their system. The reason there is that I use my overdraft frequently, as well, its free (its always paid back).

I have 15k of credit cards I want to clear, into one loan and then bin all the cards. All of the 0% offers have expired so now I'm on the expensive rates.

I have looked at my credit score and they rate me as average, so thats not inspiring. I have made one credit card payment late in the last six months and thats there on my file, but other than that there are no other problems.

Does anybody know of a lender that will take all of this into account and allow me to clear the debt and pay it off over five years?

I don't want to go around getting declined, so any advice appriciated.

Rafter

byp,

It is going to depend on your income, job security, whether you own your own home etc - but £15k of credit card debt is going to worry a lot of lenders, particularly if you have used a lot of your allocated credit limit.

The problem is that any loan company will have no guarantee that you will pay off your cards, cut them up and not run up debt again. Although you don't plan to do this, a lot of consolidation loan customers have and do to support a lifestyle they have got used to funded by credit card spending.

Your best plan in my view is to get Martin Lewis' book 'The money diet', set yourself a tough budget, prioritise paying your highest interest rate credit card off as much as possible each month and then recycle the interest you save into making a larger dent in your debt each and every month.

At some point you will reach a tipping point where you will be offered a loan or 0% card deals again, but for now you are probably stuck unfortunately, despite the fact that a loan could make things more manageable for you.

Good luck

R.

fozmcfc

What Rafter says is 100% correct.

I myself when doing an assesement with the smart seach on moneysupermarket.com have a good score as far as Credit Cards are concerned, but only a fair profile when it comes to a loan because of the amount owed on other loans/credit cards, as the loan just adds to the debt I already have.

In the past 6 months, I have been refused a loan of £5000, but have been accepted for 2 credit cards with £6000 and £4300 limits on them.

russt2000

agree consolidation is risky a it is tempting to keep hold of a bit and before you know it ,what you were saving has dissapeared.

the secured consolidation {sub prime } market is in turmoil ,with ppi claims almost starting to rocket ,this is how they make the money , so if you go that route stay well clear of ppi ,you can buy it much cheaper yourself. and check the interest rates , our lender has not decreased our rates.

boe rate well nil out rates are betwen 9 and 16 % do you sums carefully