Let me just caution for anyone else reading this that this can be a great tactic to consolidate your debt to a possibly lower APR and help your scores by transferring your debt from revolving to installment, as revolving util is much more important than installment util.
However, you have to be very honest with yourself as to how this debt got up so high in the first place, and what will keep it from happening again. If you're not brutally clear about this, you're apt to wind up with the loan plus brand new balances on your CC's, doubling your problems.
One case where this makes a lot of sense is if the CC debt was incurred as a one-time, out of nowhere expense, like uninsured medical bills, natural disasters (think Hurricane Katrina), a tuition bill, or a nasty divorce settlement. But if that debt just crept up over time, and you can't really pin-point how it happened, I'd think long and hard before moving it to installment, leaving the CC's open and welcoming. That's called "enabling."
Once again, this is just a general message to anyone who might read this.
However, you have to be very honest with yourself as to how this debt got up so high in the first place, and what will keep it from happening again. If you're not brutally clear about this, you're apt to wind up with the loan plus brand new balances on your CC's, doubling your problems.
One case where this makes a lot of sense is if the CC debt was incurred as a one-time, out of nowhere expense, like uninsured medical bills, natural disasters (think Hurricane Katrina), a tuition bill, or a nasty divorce settlement. But if that debt just crept up over time, and you can't really pin-point how it happened, I'd think long and hard before moving it to installment, leaving the CC's open and welcoming. That's called "enabling."
Once again, this is just a general message to anyone who might read this.
@haulingthescoreup wrote:
Let me just caution for anyone else reading this that this can be a great tactic to consolidate your debt to a possibly lower APR and help your scores by transferring your debt from revolving to installment, as revolving util is much more important than installment util.
However, you have to be very honest with yourself as to how this debt got up so high in the first place, and what will keep it from happening again. If you're not brutally clear about this, you're apt to wind up with the loan plus brand new balances on your CC's, doubling your problems.
One case where this makes a lot of sense is if the CC debt was incurred as a one-time, out of nowhere expense, like uninsured medical bills, natural disasters (think Hurricane Katrina), a tuition bill, or a nasty divorce settlement. But if that debt just crept up over time, and you can't really pin-point how it happened, I'd think long and hard before moving it to installment, leaving the CC's open and welcoming. That's called "enabling."
Once again, this is just a general message to anyone who might read this.
Absolutely this is true, consolidating debt must not reduce the sense of urgency about dealing with the underlying cause of that debt.