Consolidation loans are DANGEROUS, because you shift all your debt from one place to another, OPENING A NEW CHANNEL OF CREDIT, while freeing up your credit cards. Some idiots proceed to fill up their credit cards again, now they have double the debt they started with, paying up to 22% on their consolidation loan because they weren't paying attention to the APR. Some unscrupulous consolidation companies make it appear they are eliminating your debt, or hide the APR. It's better to transfer you credit card balances to your lowest APR card. Pay more to cards with high APR, send more than the minimum payment, or it will take 10 years to pay it off. If you have cash in the bank earning 2%, it's losing you more to income taxes, so be smart and use it to pay off 18% debt. A home equity loan can pay off credit cards, and write off the interest on your taxes. But you MUST close those cards, or risk running them back up. We cover all this in much more clear detail on our other site DebtWizards.com
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