Loans to consolidate debts when you owe less than the usal candidates?

funky1471

I was stupid a few years ago and i've got into what I consider a large amount of debt.

I have four credit cards:

1 - £550
2 - £400
3 - £460
4 - £300

I have two store cards:

1 - £600
2 - £400

I also have 1 Loan which ends in September and takes £69 a month from me.

Now as I see it the loan I should just leave to run its course as I would save nothing by paying it off early and it is nearly up anyway.

With the credit cards I have tried asking the lower rate card companies (19.9% APR is my lowest and is on two of them) for a credit limit increase but I am not eligible for about another 4 months so that idea is out of the window!

Now I had the idea of getting a Loan but I know for a fact that no debt consolidation company will give me a loan to pay off £2710 and I am extremely doubtful that my bank can offer me another loan as I have been in my current job for only 8.5 months, this was a 12 month contract running from 1st august 2006 to 1st august 2007 but I just got an official extention of that to May 2008, so I do not know if that helps in any way...but having been there less than 12 months I think they will tell me where to go!!

So I am really stumped for what I can do, the main problem is not paying off the debt but getting it all into one single place to manage it a lot better. If I am honest I would not want all of it in one loan as I know with the smaller balance cards I can have it paid off quicker. I would like to put about £1500-£1800 into one place which would leave with me the two lower rate credit cards to pay off.

Is there any ideas people can give me as I am really wanting to clear all of this off as soon as possible but I am stuck for ideas, please if you have any ideas or can suggest somewhere to give me a 1500-2000 loan when I have been with my employer less than 12 months then please do so, I have a meeting at my branch of Halifax tomorrow at 9am to see if they can offer any advice...

By me going to a meeting with them am I any more likely to get it sorted or would it just be the same as if I rang their loan application number and asked over the phone??


EDIT: P.S I do not have a house I live with parents and I am 20 so I have no property to secure the loan against. Also my income is about £13k a year if that makes any difference to your answers.

xgingerx

Hi, I am praying for the day when my debts are as low as yours

To be very honest with these debts it would be much cheaper for you to snowball them, this means you have an amount to pay off the debts and you pay the minimum on all debts but the highest interest one and then you pay as much off that one, when thats clear you start to clear the second highest and so on until they are all clear.

Here is a useful calculater which shows how to do it and how much you will save and how long it will take to clear these.

http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

give it a go and see if this is a good alternative, you might be surprised

Rafter

Funky,

Agree wtih ginger. Best course of action is going to be a money diet and repaying your debt by snowballing.

Please, please, please if you do get a loan, don't get more than you need and rip your credit cards and store cards up once they are paid off. Otherwise the temptation will be there to fill them all up again.

Just think. If you put the £69 towards one of your cards paying 30% each month you will reduce your interest bill by £2 a month, and save yourself about £3 in repayments. Next month you can now afford to pay £74 (69+3+2) and will save £6 in payments and interest so next month you can afford to pay off £80. Hence why it is called snowballing! Before long you will find that a) Your overall debt is coming down and b) you have more cash after meeting your minimum repayments each month and c) Bingo! as a result you may be able to get a sub 15% loan to consolidate everything and reduce your interest bill further.

Remember too that every £5 you can save by cooking rather than getting takeaway or sellign something on ebay or not buying something you don't really need can be added to your 'snowball' to accelerate the whole process.

Good luck.

R.