Consolidate my debts?

A question about : Consolidate my debts?

HI,

I am looking for advice on the best course of action to minimise my outgoings and decreasing my interest rates.

I have three credit cards:

1 - Ј2400 (spent Ј2200) TESCO;
2 - Ј5400 (spent Ј4600) BARCLAYS;
3 - Ј3000 (spent Ј0) HSBC.

I also have one loan of Ј5000 (Ј800 paid) HSBC.

I am currently paying out approximately Ј235.00 per month.

Given the time of the year (Christmas approaching) and also home improvements long needed I am enquiring to see if it would be advisable to consolidate all credit into one somehow?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Chris

Best answers:

• what are the interest rates on the cards and the min repayments on cards and loan?
• HI, The interest rates are all around 18%. I am are currently paying Ј104 on the Loan pcm. Thanks
• so Ј131 on the cards
  the exact rates would be helpful in case you can make some savings moving things around
  you can also do a SOA to see if we can help you cut back anywhere
• The one BIG risk with consolidating is that you do nothing to change your behaviour and simply consolidate and continue to spend more than you have coming in. Is this you?
• I will have to look into the interest rates and compile a SOA.
  I don't intent to continue the way i have. I want to cut up all credit cards, have a structure to paying off my debts and an aim to work towards. The position I'm in at the moment if something comes up i have the 'throw it on the credit card' attitude. Whereas if they're gone, they're gone.
• So long as you have a good repayment history, you could try and apply for a 0% BT card. This would be one way of "consolidating" them. Not much you could really do about the loan, is that at 18% too? If so, I'd try applying for an MBNA 0% card, they offer Money Transfers and Balance Transfers, so you could get a money transfer to settle the loan and use a balance transfer to transfer the CC debt. This all relies on you getting a large enough limit though.
  As others have said though, you just need to make sure if you do consolidate debt etc, that you don't rack it up again.