When you are overwhelmed with repayments against numerous personal or business loans all having different amounts that need to be paid on specific dates you need to roll your all your loans into one with one convenient repayment every month, this is called debt consolidation. This becomes all the more important if you find yourself in a position where you can’t financially meet all of your loan obligations. In such a situation you may find a personal loan consolidation to be a life saver.
When you take out a personal consolidation loan, you reduce your loans down to a size that allows you to pay off all your outstanding debts and make one payment each month against your personal debt consolidation loan. However, like everything else, personal debt consolidation also has its pros and cons. Here’s a look into some of the positive and negative aspects of personal consolidation loans.
A personal consolidation loan can be very helpful when your credit card repayments become unmanageable. You may have a number of other loan obligations to fulfill such as car loan repayments, student loan repayments, high interest personal loan repayments etc. Getting a personal debt consolidation loan will let you roll all these repayments into a single repayment and rid you of the need to make multiple repayments at different dates over the whole month. This will prevent default on your loans and save you from spoiling your credit scores as the loan will be spread over a long repayment period with smaller monthly installments that can be managed easily. It will also relieve you from a situation where you have to pay late fees and various other charges for not being able to make loan repayments on time. Having just one creditor offers an advantage of lesser hassles in managing you loan. In case of any financial problems or issues you will need to deal with only one instead of several creditors letting you control your finances with greater ease.
For example, suppose you have the following personal debts
| Type of Loans | Amt owed | Monthly payment | Interest |
| Auto Loan | $3000 | 375 | 20% |
| Other Loans | $2000 | 424 | 9% |
| Credit Card I | $3600 | 400 | 15% |
| Credit Card II | $1200 | 13 | 19% |
| Other account | $300 | 4 | 14% |
And consolidate the loans into a single mortgage or loan home equity loan then
|
|
Current Loans |
Single Loan |
|
Monthly payments |
$1216 |
$457 |
|
Total Interest |
$3779 |
$863 |
|
Total tax savings |
$ 0 |
$292 |
|
Total cost |
$13,879 |
$11,046 |
This way you save $2879 over a 24 month period.
As you can see, consolidating your loans can be a very good move, however, it is important to know that consolidating your loans can also have a downside.
It is important to be careful because while your monthly payments may be lower the overall interest amount that you will be paying could be higher than what you would have paid on your earlier loans and because of this, the personal consolidation loan could be spread over a longer period of time during which you will pay more money than you originally would have. It is important to find a personal consolidation loan that offers an equal or lower amount of interest than what you are currently paying on your various loans. Moreover, debt consolidation loans are secured loans and in case of default you may lose your home when you pledge it as collateral against the loan.
It is also important to make sure that you do not borrow more money only to build up more debt after you consolidate your loans, this will only serve to dig a deeper and deeper hole that may eventually be impossible to climb out of.
Considering all of this, it’s important to ask yourself if a personal debt consolidation loan is really worthwhile. Well the right answer for you may not be the same as for another person and would really depend on your individual situation. It would be best to seek the help of a finance professional who will be the right person to assist you in crunching numbers and give you the right advise on whether a securing a personal consolidation loan is right for you.
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I recently consolidated my student loans this past year – my payments are only $200 a month, but I got a lowered interest rate. So, while paying the same amount, more of the overall total is applied to principal. I have around $14,000 left, and it still feels like it’s a lot to pay off.