General Advice

pearbox

Hi all, i am a moneysavingexpert virgin have often found these threads informative in the past.

So now its my time to ask for some advice regarding debt. I currently earn 35K a year, have a morgage and the general bills you associate with a family. Money is never really an issue and considering my wife also works we feel comfortable. Or at least have been.

Over the past few years with the kids, home improvements etc we have run up some cards and plus i still have some loans on-going for appox another 2 years.

In total we have about 30K of debt and although we can currently manage, its getting a bit tight and frankly i hate the fact we have X amount of cards and paying X amount of interest overall.

What i could really do with is some advice of how i could get it all consolidated into an affordable payment whereby i am just paying one set of interest (not a rip off amount). I am not keen either to look into secured loan option and when looking at our normal outgoings and monthly income its clear that we can afford a consolidation loan (if the others were consolidated).

Advice would be welcome.

Tixy

Hi

Just from what you have posted I imagine you will struggle to get that level of consolidation loan (the potential lender will consider if you can afford the new loan on top of all the existing debts - in case you don't consolidate - or in case you run up the cards again).

Is it just some of your debt you are paying a high APR on?

Could you list your debts, balances and APRs?

Maybe you could get a loan just for the highest interest debts - or if its cards maybe see if you could get 0% balance transfer cards for some of your debts instead.

mrsb83_2

Getting a consolidation loan is lots of people's first thought when they have high debt. But it's rarely a good idea and in any event you'd struggle to get such a high loan given your salary and current borrowing. It doesn't address the underlying problem either.

You've been paying out more than you bring in for a long time and you need to cut down both your spending and your debt level.

Post the details here so that people can offer advice, and focus your energy on paying down rather than consolidation.