credit card STRESS

Picklepot12

Hi guys, 

I am so stressed about what’s best to do… I currently have a 6k credit card which was 0% but now i’m paying interest on it. I have a 4600£ loan and another 800£ loan. At the minute i’m just about managing to pay what i can (loan payments and £100 a month on CC) but now the credit card is gaining interest I can feel myself spiralling due to me being self employed in construction and the winter months being just round the corner I know that there’s gonna be weeks where I don’t earn anything. 

I was thinking a debt consolidation loan might help it be less overwhelming but that doesn’t help with the potential problem I can see coming in the near future 😫

RedFraggle

Hey
You can do this! Have a read here to begin with.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6496941/in-debt-and-wannabe-debt-free-first-steps-to-take-are-here-please-read-then-ask-questions#latest
Others will be along to support and advise. 

CliveOfIndia

Debt consolidation is not a good idea - you can't borrow your way out of debt.  Also, since the lender can't force you to use the loan to pay off existing debt, they have to work on the principle that the loan will be in addition to - not instead of - the existing debt.  This will be factored into their affordability calculations, meaning you may well find you can't get the loan - or if you can, it'll be at a very high APR.

A good first step is to fill out an SOA, select the "Format for MSE" option, then post the results up here.  Others can then take a look and give you some objective and impartial advice.

https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/financecalculators/soa.php

Brie

Well done for facing up to the fact there is something to be sorted out.  

And I agree - if you post an SOA on here then maybe we can give some practical advice on your budget that might make a debt solution more easy to determine.  Most of us have been where you are, or worse (that'd be me!) so understand the stress this sort of thing can bring.  Net result is that we try to be helpful not judgmental.

fatbelly

Have you checked whether you can balance transfer to another card?

ManyWays

Who are your current loans from? When does the first one end?

sourcrates

If your boat has a hole in it, and is sinking, and your first response is to make that hole bigger, that is akin to the effect a consolidation loan can have on you.

Ideally you want to be patching that hole, so reducing expenditure, increasing income if you can, and then self managed debt management may be the way through this.

Borrowing more money, making the hole bigger, is not the way to get out of debt for the vast majority of folk, lower payments over a longer period of time, or no payments at all if your budget says you can`t afford it, is the key to successful management of your unsecured debts.

That is the basic place to start from, a full SOA will tell us more about your situation, but debt management is the most likely choice.