Consolidating you debt means taking all of your credit cards and loans and putting them onto one lower interest loan so that you will only have to pay one bill. The problem with this is that you have to be very careful that you pay your debt off as quickly as possible and don’t run up more debt on your credit card and line of credit.
Balance Transfers
I did this with credit card debt that I had. I signed up for a credit card that had a 1.9% introductory rate and did not use the card (not even once), infact I cut it up almost right away and paid it down on a schedule of $35/week that make sure it was paid off within a year. The great thing about this is that taking inflation into consideration (3-4% increase per year), the bank actually lost money by giving me this deal!
Consolidating your debt does not mean that you should slowly pay off your debt over time, doing this means that you are paying maybe double or ever triple for the things you originally bought at regular price. The catch with credit cards that have introductory rates is that if you don’t pay them off within the year then your interest rate skyrockets to about 18% or higher.
Also, if you are in a marriage or relationship, then make sure you’re both on the same page. If one of you is paying the debt down while the other is spending then you will never get anywhere. This is why it is so important to review your progress at least on a yearly basis to see how much farther you are ahead than the year before. This way you will be able to identify the problems and fix them.
If you and your partner have trouble talking about money, it is so important to make a point to talk about it. The number one thing couples fight about is money, that is why it’s so important to be on the same page.
Most people who consolidate their debt end up getting themselves into an even deeper hole. This is because while they are making the minimum payments on their consolidated debt, they are at the same time charging their credit cards up to the same amount that they were before the consolidation.
Consolidating can be a good thing if you use it wisely, but be careful that you don’t dig yourself into a deeper hole.
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