Debt Consolidation Loan

smallblueplanet

geoffky wrote: »

we do not do soft love around here m8 just tough love and by doing it the op ends up getting a reality dose instead of the yes go ahead thats fine love. you will learn..;)

I'm not a fan of tough love. I'm a fan of 'what works for you'. I've recently taken out a consolidation loan from my bank (at 6.2% APR) and before I did I looked through some of the posts on this board.

Nearly everytime 'consolidation' was mentioned there was a wailing and a gnashing of teeth. Normally followed by it'll never work sort comments and stick to paying off the debts as they are now type comments.

What a load of tosh that is for financial advice. How does comments that lead to people paying higher than necessary interest rates help them 'save' money?

Anyway I'll probably stop reading the loans section now as I was just lured back in from habit when previously looking for loan advice, the best bit was 'try your own bank'.

chalkie99

smallblueplanet wrote: »

I'm not a fan of tough love. I'm a fan of 'what works for you'. I've recently taken out a consolidation loan from my bank (at 6.2% APR) and before I did I looked through some of the posts on this board.

Nearly everytime 'consolidation' was mentioned there was a wailing and a gnashing of teeth. Normally followed by it'll never work sort comments and stick to paying off the debts as they are now type comments.

What a load of tosh that is for financial advice. How does comments that lead to people paying higher than necessary interest rates help them 'save' money?

Anyway I'll probably stop reading the loans section now as I was just lured back in from habit when previously looking for loan advice, the best bit was 'try your own bank'.

I've highlighted the important part of that for you.

Well done if it all works out for you but the fact you have only recently taken it out proves nothing yet.

meer53

If consolidation enables you to repay your debt and pay less interest, allowing you to pay for the essentials in life like housing, food etc, then who is anyone to judge ? Yes, there are people who will just get themselves into another financial pickle but there are people, myself included, who have consolidated and got themselves back onto the straight and narrow with no debt anymore. Mine was forced on me by a marriage breakdown, but i'm not stupid enough to think that everyone is the same as me.

Point out the pitfalls, yes, in case people haven't really thought it through, but i would never judge anyone who takes this option. I deal with consolidation loans in my job, it's not always a bad idea.

RobertoMoir

smallblueplanet wrote: »

I'm not a fan of tough love. I'm a fan of 'what works for you'. I've recently taken out a consolidation loan from my bank (at 6.2% APR) and before I did I looked through some of the posts on this board.

Nearly everytime 'consolidation' was mentioned there was a wailing and a gnashing of teeth. Normally followed by it'll never work sort comments and stick to paying off the debts as they are now type comments.

What a load of tosh that is for financial advice. How does comments that lead to people paying higher than necessary interest rates help them 'save' money?

Anyway I'll probably stop reading the loans section now as I was just lured back in from habit when previously looking for loan advice, the best bit was 'try your own bank'.

You certainly know more than the combined experience of the board regulars about you and your circumstances, but the board regulars have probably seen more people try that route and end up in trouble than you have and therefore might know a little bit about what happens all too often.

Dismissing their/our warnings as "tosh" is every bit as much of a useless sweeping statement as "consolidation loans never ever work".

smallblueplanet

chalkie99 wrote: »

I've highlighted the important part of that for you.

Well done if it all works out for you but the fact you have only recently taken it out proves nothing yet.

It proves that although my debt has not YET gone down the repayments/interest I will be paying HAS gone down - do you get it?

smallblueplanet

RobertoMoir wrote: »

...Dismissing their/our warnings as "tosh" is every bit as much of a useless sweeping statement as "consolidation loans never ever work".

Well in that case maybe in future consolidation loans will be viewed individually and then a comment made on whether they are a good idea or not...

Poosmate

The point is the OP hasn't provided the information to suggest that he would be able to manage without the use of further credit further down the line.

Yes he states the figures add up and it's "possible and realistic" but when you're looking at a consolidation loan they almost always do. What he doesn't mention is that once paid his o/d and cc will be closed (or at the very least drastically reduced to limit possible future damage).

OK he's a new poster and can be forgiven for not mentioning such but he's put up a plan for us all to look at and consider and feed back on. That's what people have done. No one can actually answer his question about being woried as there isn't enough info in the OP to give opinion on that.

More info is required in order to give more constructive opinion.

Poo

irishcol

geoffky wrote: »

we do not do soft love around here m8 just tough love and by doing it the op ends up getting a reality dose instead of the yes go ahead thats fine love. you will learn..;)

I'm all for tough love, but just wanted to point out that a sweeping dismissal was not necessarily the best way to respond to the OP's question.

What might be useful is if there was a link to a summary of the pros and cons of consolidation loans. (There probably already is such a thread?). Then people could reply with questions about the individual circumstances and the link, suggesting the OP does some further research before deciding which way to go.

MoneyMagic01273

I also feel compelled to chime in with some experience of consolidation of debts.

For some people - including me - it can work very well and I also roll my eyes everytime some posts a thread about it and gauranteed the next 5 posters fly by to tell them not to do it.

I would point out that debt effects everyone in different ways - and debt situations themselves can vary wildly from one indiviual to another. For me, I just wasn't mentally able to handle the fact that I owed so many different people so much money. The logistics of juggling things around, keeping track of payments, balances and the general anxiety of having a huge debt burden was too much for me to handle and I needed to drastically simplify things.

It is very easy to sit at your laptops and explain to someone how easy and straightforward it should be to organise and prioritise your payments by ABC, focussing firstly on XYZ. And for some it probably is. But for some, the reality isn't like that. Its a confusing, stressful time and it can be very difficult for some people to sufficiently organise their minds. And so for some people it is a totally valid approach to simplify the circumstances instead.

Of course I agree that if you consider consolidating your debts it is critically important that you make a commitment to be disciplined and cancel/remove those credit facilities that you pay off - and of course I do accept that there are examples of people that haven't done that and have come unstuck. But there are also success stories of people effectively tackling their debts through consolidation, removing a lot of stess and complexity (real or percieved) enabling then to steadily and more easily chip away at what you owe.

I managed to succesfully clear almost £13,000 in debts doing this. Not as large as some cases but I wasn't earning much money back then and I owed money accross numerous lenders. I truly believe the stress of owing this amount of money to so many lenders was leading me to a breakdown at the time. Consolidating really helped me get to grips with everything.

Just my 2 cents!

rising_from_the_ashes

smallblueplanet wrote: »

It proves that although my debt has not YET gone down the repayments/interest I will be paying HAS gone down - do you get it?

mmmmm well I do hope you're one of the paltry 15% that consolidation loans work for ... however, that statistic speaks for itself IMHO.

You have to be iron willed not to buy anything you shouldn't and not be tempted to take out ANY more credit .... unfortunately life often has a habit of getting in the was as xxx years to clear the loan is a long time.

OP - Unless the reasons for the debts arising in the first place have been fully addressed, deal with and with absolutely 100% confidence that they won't happen again - DON'T DO IT!