Best Advice from All you Veterans

polly1960_2

I'm a complete newbie who's absolutely mortified by my own stupidity
Have 6300 on a credit card (horrendous interest) and 6000 on a loan (not so horrendous) with a good credit rating (mortgage balance on property 25k - approx value of property 90k) and I'm being offered a SECURED loan (which is what scares the pants off me - do I have to have secured???) with monthly £200 payments (which is my comfortable available cash payment) - can someone help me by offering advice on where I should go for a good consolidated loan offer please - it took me time to get in to this mess and I know it'll take me time to get out of it but I'm now prepared for that so if it takes 10 years it takes 10 years and I'll live with that
Have been reading loads of threads and feel I can sort this with the incredible offers of support
Thanks

bedhair

Is a consolidation loan essential? Can you cut back on living expenses and put the savings towards the CC and loan?
The best thing to do is post a SOA (see sticky at the top of the DFW forum) and we can see just how much you might be able to save each month.

Well done for posting though, that's the hard bit over with.
Bedhair
xxxxxxx

RAS

Welcome to MSE polly

Generally we would never suggest that you go for a secure loan to deal with unsecured debt.

Assuming that you have not got loads of CCJs etc and are on the electoral roll, have you looked at the link on the main page on cards and loans?

Get your credit checks from the credit reference agencies and as long as they are OK, try to get a 0% or low life balnce transfer for all or most of your CC debt.

Are you in credit at the beginning of the month? Could you pay a whack off the credit card (£1000) and go OD, then apply for an account with the Alliance and Leicester who are offering 0% OD for a year?

have a look at the stickie by souther scouser on the first page, for new poasters and complete your SOA, and let's see what is possible. By the way, you could read his new post, crowing over having paid off half his debts today.

oops_a_daisy

Hi Polly1960 - I think you just had your lightbulb moment you are not stupid ( we have all done it - well most of us anyway :rolleyes: )

try to put your SOA on here so you can get the best advice, if you have a good credit rating can you get a 0% interest card ( or 2 ) or a low rate life of balance card and transfer onto them ? have a look at all of the options before you consolodate and definately before you put it onto a secured loan.

You have come to the right place so try to stop worrying :grouphug:

GettingThingsDone

Hi Polly1960 - welcome to DFW!

You're definitely in the right place. Have you had a look at the snowball calculator? It's worth playing with.

Consolidation can work for you, but it's definitely worth considering alternatives before going down that risky road. The risk being that unless you are super-disciplined you will rack up the debt on the 'cleared' credit card and end up deeper in debt.

Generally speaking it's also best to avoid securing debt against your property; especially if it is currently unsecured.

As the others on here have said, pop your SOA up and we'll see how we can help

gtd

angelavdavis

I agree with RAS, don't transfer unsecured debt into a secured one. Post up the SOA and the good folks will help you out!

hypno06

Hi there, if a loan is the best option for you - make sure you get an unsecured loan that you can make flexible overpayments on. Interest must not be front loaded otherwise any overpayments will not benefit you.

But, as others have said, consolidation is not generally the right way forward - put up your SOA and we will see what we can come up with!!