Consolidate or not?

Jb2030

I have around 12k of credit card debt split over 2 cards, and am beginning to find the minimum monthly payments (total around £300 a month) leave me a little tight each month. I have a mortgage, my credit rating is good and have recently just paid off my car loan. I earn around 30k a year, and I have always transferred to 0% cards, but think i may struggle to get one for that amount as would prefer it all on one card, so was thinking of taking out a 12k loan over 6 years, which would bring my monthly payments down, and pay the loan off over a set period of time, allowing me to tear up the credit cards.

Does this seem a good idea?

J

Tixy

You would probably struggle to get such a consolidation loan.
A potential lender would assess your affordability based on you ending up in £24k of debt (as you might not use the money to repay the cards or might run up the cards again), on a salary of £30k then £24k of potential debt is likely to be significantly higher risk than most banks would be prepared to go to.

If you are struggling to meet your minimum payments then it might be worth popping over to the debt free wannabe board here on MSE and seeking some help and suggestions on ways to decrease your outgoings or increase your incomings so that you can meet the repayments.

[Deleted User]

if you have the equity in your house then see what your lender can offer?
we consolidated £10k of debt with our b/soc last year fixed at 4.79% for 3 years

fatbelly

I'd stick with what you're doing currently - 0% BTs on multiple cards. It doesn't endanger your house and payments reduce the balance quite efficiently

Maybe have regard to the minimum payments a bit more next time you switch - can vary between 1 and 5% depending on the card.

http://www.stoozing.com/0fees.php