OP, I HOPE YOU SEE THIS!
So I was thinking about this a little bit more and it was bothering me, so I had to go look for more information on those two personal loans. I want to point out what I can see about the fees on those two personal loans.
This is NetCredit:
Outstanding Balance Fee:
The outstanding balance fee you owe will vary based on the frequency with which you receive income outstanding principal balance at the end of your billing period and any Fee Saver reductions accrued. If your outstanding principal balance at the end of your billing period is $25 or less, you will not incur an outstanding balance fee.
For bi-weekly/twice-monthly customers with no Fee Saver reductions accrued, the outstanding balance fee will be $5 per $100 of the outstanding principal balance at the end of the billing period (rounded up to the nearest $100). This means that if your outstanding principal balance is between $25.01 and $100, we charge $5. If your balance is between $100.01 and $200, we charge $10, and so on.
For monthly customers with no Fee Saver reductions accrued, this amount will be $10 per $100 of the outstanding principal balance at the end of the billing period (rounded up to the nearest $100). This means that if your outstanding principal balance is between $25.01 and $100, we charge $10. If your balance is between $100.01 and $200, we charge $20, and so on.
This is Rise:
APR (Based on Credit)
60% - 299%
This is what it presents to me for my state, so terms might be different for you. It does confirm my worry that this were predatory lenders/nearly payday loans.
I know that everyone is telling you to pay certain things down first to below 89% utilization, and to "snowball" as you pay things off. This is very solid advice, but with these kinds of terms it becomes URGENT that these loans get paid off as fast as possible. These will accrue so much interest that they will be extremely hard to get out from under.
If you have a friendly banker at your bank or credit union it would be VERY beneficial to take a personal loan at more favorable rates to get them closed. It would be better to lay the debt onto the credit cards as space opens up on them.
From the looks of things NetCredit could be accruing $470 a month and Rise could be even worse. (Granted my math is bad, so don't quote me on exact numbers.) After these two are dealt with, the snowball method that was recommended becomes very logical, but I STRONGLY recommend that you look at the loans as first priority. Don't let anything go late, make all the minimums, but put everything extra to these.
If you can find out the exact interest rates you are under for these, we can help you figure out level of urgency between the two of them. If you'd like to post APRs for various cards I would gladly help you decide which order is best for paydown. I'm sure others here would be willing to help as well.
The last thing I want to say is that you shouldn't be embarrassed. Life happens, and sometimes things go wrong. You're taking a proactive approach here, and that is extremely admirable.
