Avoiding The Dangers of Debt Consolidation Loans
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
You may have seen it on television and heard it on radio — people who are out of money have rolled all their debts, including credit card debts, into one, have gotten interest payments reduced, and apparently have restored some order into their finances. The loan packages that make these possible are called debt consolidation loans and they do provide some manoeuvring room if your loans are no longer controllable, and you need to rein them in.
Debt consolidation lines of credit may appear to provide an easy solution to replace several financial obligations - store and credit card debts, car and home loans, etc. - with a single payment on an easy schedule. But keep in mind that there are risks involved in taking out debt consolidation loans. You are actually changing short term credit card debts into longer ones.
Your Consolidation Choices
You have two options in getting debt consolidation loans: personal loans and home loans. If you are keen on personal loans, you may want to explore possibilities with your existing lender first. A thorough househoild budget and repayment plan may be required. This should boost your chances of getting the loans you need from your lender.
If you have built up sufficient equity in your home, you may want to choose the home loan option. In this instance you can access some of the equity you hold in your home at a lower interest rate than your existing debts and use that to pay off high interest credit cards. By tapping your home equity, you gain a longer period within which to pay off other debts — if need be, for a term as long as your home loan. The result: lower monthly repayments and an easier cash flow.
The Risks
You can massively reduce the total amount of interest yoy pay by paying above the minimum repayments each month. Getting the loan itself is not cheap as there are application fees and other charges that lenders will levy on debt consolidation loans.
Don’t forget the risks involved with debt consolidation via your home loan. Putting your home at risk would be terrible to you need to keep on top of the required payments.
You need to realize that your spending habits got you into this trouble and history will repeat itself unless you change. For example, debt consolidation loans might allow you to pay off credit card debt on three credit cards amounting to $10,000 — which helps you because of the reduced interest burden. But you now have three credit cards with available credit limits you can access in full. It’s very easy to be tempted. With the debts cleared on your cards you could quickly forget you still have the $10,000 debt to pay off.
Don’t get yourself into a debt consolidation loan unless you are serious about changing your spending habits by paying off your debts and avoiding new debts. A good way to minimise the temptation to use your credit card will be to cancel all but one of the cards. For the remaining card choose the one with the lowest interest rates and fees and ask the issuer to lower the limit to a level you can pay off in full each month.
Sit down and plot out your monthly income and all your outgoings with special note on where your outgoings are being spent. You need to cut the fat from your budget, doing away with expenses that are not required and refocus that money on making loan repayments above and beyond the minimum balance required. Remember, self-discipline is the key to make debt consolidation loans work.
Article by Richard Greenwood from click4credit.com.au which allows consumers to make a credit card application online.
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