Juggling Various Debts

davyb33

Hey all, this is my first post so i would be glad of some help and advice. I have accrued approx £17,000 worth of various debts and i was wondering how to manage them to make it easiest on myself. I have the following:
61 repayments of £248 left on a loan (settlement figure £12,400 i think)
£2,300 balance on my M&S card, damn 1 year interest free!
£550 on store cards
£1,700 in debt on my current account
Total £17k debt

I want to consolidate this into one payment paying as little interest as possible but over a reasonable time period, say 5-7 years and get me in the black again

I have a decent salary and a good credit rating but dont want to start paying £400-£500 a month on debts as this would leave things tight. Could some one give me some ideas??

Thanks, Davy

scottishsuz

First of all, hiya!

I wouldn't personally go for a consolidation loan. They tend to be pretty bad news as they reduce payments but increase the length of the term so you end up paying more in interest. I use a snowballing approach, going for the debt with the highest interest first and making smaller payments on the others (more than the minimum if at all possible though) then when one is done and dusted you put the extra cash towards the next one and so on and so forth.

If you put your post in the Debt free-wanabe bit you'll get loads of good suggestions to get this paid off, they are a really good bunch in there