Advice please CCCS

helen_clare

Like so many of the posters here I have had a terrible last two years, through a mixture of bad luck, personal bereavement and diminished recession hit earnings , I have got into debt.
I'm in the lucky position of being able to do something about this though and am currently taking steps to tackle it by letting my London flat at a small profit and living cheaper in rental outside.
Since January of this year work has also picked up considerably and I am quite optimistic that with a bit of determination I can make some serious inroads into this debt over the next year.
My question is this:
I'm now looking at credit card debts of about £15000, what is the most cost effective way of clearing them?
For some reason, even though I have never missed a payment, only have two creditors and owe money to no-one else, (no outstanding utility bills, late mortgage payments etc) I seem to be now unable to move onto a short term 0% interest card. Is it worth my waiting for a couple of months and trying again or would my best bet be to get some sort of loan for the whole sum?
If so what sort of loan?
My property is worth £300,000 and my current mortgage borrowing £135,000.
I'm on my own and frankly bewildered by the 'advice' apparantly available on the internet.
I don't trust my bank to give me good advice as thanks to them I got stuck on a profoundly uncompetitive fixed rate mortgage which I'm tied into until this December and which is, frankly, one of the reasons I'm in this mess.
Desperate for unbiased, non-profit based help and don't know where to turn.
:mad:

Numpty_Monkey

Hi helen:hello:
well done in having the determination and not trusting your bank:T

Getting a consolition loan is not really idea.
Are you managing to repay the minimum repayments?
and do you have excess money?
If you fill out the SOA thingy from here http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html
and post the results we might be able to to find savings to increase your repayments :A

NorthernLas

Read up on Martin's guide to cards and loans. You may be able to shuffle your debt or reduce the interest rate by phoning the CC companies up.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/

If you can meet the minimum repayments then, loans are less flexible than cards since you can overpay on the card and reduce your debt. Can you balance transfer to a low rate rather than 0%?

helen_clare

Truth is I am making my minimum payments but next month my 0% balance transfers offer runs out on my main card and reverts to 16%pa so all my repayments will be going on interest rather than paying off the debt.
My one goal at the moment is to get as good a deal as possible because I simply can't afford to make another expensive mistake.
I hear what you say about the inflexibility of loans and I think now that it wouldn't be the way for me to go because, being free-lance, my monthly income is extremely variable.
I'll sit down and spend a day phoning round and see if I can get a better deal.
Thanks anyway....