Credit Card Debt Consolidation Made Easy!

By: Sarah Dinkins
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:16:55
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The interest rate charged by credit card providers is probably one of the highest of the financial industry only surpassed by payday loans and cash advance loans which have interest rates that are almost abusive. A credit card can easily charge a 20% rate on an annual basis.

How does debt consolidation help?

Let’s say that your credit cards unpaid balances combined reach an amount of $5000 and the average interest rate charged is 20%. You would then be paying $1000 in interests each year unless you reduce the principal. If you keep paying only the minimum payments on your credit cards you will only be paying for 2% or 3% of the debt’s principal.

If instead of sticking to financing yourself with credit cards, you decide to take a debt consolidation loan and use the money to cancel your credit card’s balances, you can save thousands of dollars. A $5000 debt consolidation loan can be easily obtained with a 10% interest rate. Let’s say you want to repay your loan in two years, the amount of interests you’ll have to pay over the whole life of the loan would be $1000 while credit card financing would cost you $2000. By consolidating you’d be saving 50% on interests in the worst scenario.

Other Options

As stated at the beginning of this article, there are other ways to reduce credit card debt. If you don’t want to apply for a loan or if you can’t do so because of your current credit score, there are some actions you can take in order to improve your credit while at the same time reducing your credit card debt.

Different Credit cards charge different interest rates, thus, it’s a smart move to compare the interest rates before deciding. Once you’ve identified the highest interest rate credit card, you need to focus on paying off the balance of that card. In the meantime, you should pay only the minimums on the remaining credit cards. Once the whole balance is paid, you should continue with the next highest interest credit card and so on.

If you can get hold of a 0% Balance Transfer credit card with a 0% Interest Rate promotional period, your can transfer the balances of your most expensive credit cards into the new one in order to take advantage of the promotional period to eliminate your debt. Your payments will go fully to reducing the principal since there won’t be any interests.

In any case, once you’ve reduced your debt sufficiently and improved your credit score, the smartest choice is to apply for a debt consolidation loan in order to cancel your credit card debt and any other debt. If you still can’t get approved for a consolidation loan consider contacting a debt consolidation agency. Their expert negotiators will help you agree with your creditor's new repayment programs and debt reductions so you can get out of your debt problems.

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