best way to consolidate?

rebuilding · ‎06-13-2009

My wife and I have about $37k in CC debt. we were both recently divorced before we started dating, and neither of us had anything... we had to buy all new furniture, etc, then wedding rings, weddingmoon, etc. we don't regret any of our purchases, and we have been frugal and patient with the things that we bought. we make $130k per year. about half of that debt has 6 more months of 0% before the interest rate climbs...

We are able to make the payments, and are paying extra and have been paying quite a bit of this debt down. I just think it would be faster and make more sense to consolidate it into one loan and start hammering on it.

What do you suggest? should we try to find a CC with a balance transfer offer or go to our Credit Union for a personal loan?

her scores are close to 800 mine are pushing close to 700.

11/30/2009 TU 676 EQ 665 EX 654 (CU pulled)
5/14/08 TU 660 EQ 676 EX 623
9/5/07 TU 579 EQ 612 EX 546

haulingthescoreup · ‎06-13-2009

My general advice would be to live skinny and pay those things off as fast as you can.

As to the CC bT option, lenders are pretty aware of the moving debt from point A to point B thing, so I wouldn't be optimistic about expecting 0% BT offers when your current 0%'s mature. (Could happen, though, of course.)

If you can get a loan to cover the current balances, and if the APR is doable, then you should certainly go for it.

Congrats to both of you on finding some happiness after the tough years!

* Credit is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. * Who's the boss --you or your credit?
FICO's: EQ 781 - TU 793 - EX 779 (from PSECU) - Done credit hunting; having fun with credit gardening. - EQ 590 on 5/14/2007

marty56 · ‎06-13-2009

I am not a big fan of consolidation CC debt into a single loan. The best way to get out of CC debt is to use a debt snowball type of approach where you make minimum payments on all but the smallest debt and pay extra on it until its PIF and then attack the next smallest debt and so on. I used a DMP program to slay my 70k of CC debt and it took almost 5 years.

Not to judge but if you want to be sucessfull in getting and staying out of CC debt, you need to be honest with yourselves on why you wont able able to PIF the 0% BT before the promotion rate is over. Just that would tell me that it would be a bad idea for you to take another consolidation loan out.

1/25/2021: FICO 850 EQ 848 TU 847 EX

thrasher865 · ‎06-13-2009

If any of those 0% offers are on like a store card and have deferred interest, it may be in your best interest to at least transfer those balances. The amount of deferred interest could outweigh any balance transfer fees.

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Anonymous · ‎06-13-2009

Is all the CC debt on joint cards or is it in one persons name? If the latter, I'd concentrate on removing any AU status and do anything else you can to get one of your credit reports as clean and healthy looking as possible. The person with clean reports can then apply for new cards with 0% BT offers. To reiterate, get all the debt on one persons credit report so the other person can get some fresh financial instruments to move the debt to with BT's. Pay down as much as you can for 12 months then you should be able to BT it back to the other spouse for another 12 months at 0%.