Question with credit card consolidating?

Question

I'm 26 with about $6K in credit card debt and it makes me ill. I'm in a situation where work isn't allowing me the commissions as I was before and I don't have enough equity in my house for a HELOC.

Does anyone know credit card deals where I can transfer balances into one card? I need to crack down on this before it consumes me. I'm not getting as much back from taxes as I thought, and now I'm getting nervous. I don't have any late payments, but I'm still on edge. Ideas?

Is a secured loan througha bank any good? My credit is perfect...does that make sense?

Answer 1

how many cards do you owe on? what do you make? i wouldn't fool around with consolidating. Cut up all the cards. Get on a written budget. list your bills smallest to largest and pay the smallest one off first and then move to the next one while paying the min. on the others. the reason for this is that if you pay off the smallest first then you feel like you are getting somewhere. then you have more money to put on the next smallest bill. your problem is not the interest rate it is your spending.

Answer 2

Lots of Credit cards let you consolidate onto one card, they usually charge a fee, and the amount transferred is treated as a cash advance with interest from time of transfer. So you will be farther behind in my estimation.
Keep paying on the cards you have, and stop your spending.
Most of the stuff you buy is unnecessary to life. Stop spending except for ABSOLUTE ESSENTIALS for 3 Months and you will be well on your way out of debt.

Answer 3

Since your credit is good, I would get one of those 0% interest cards for 12 months and transfer the balance to that card. In this way, you can pay the card off with no interest.

Answer 4

You don't need a secured loan!
Bank of America, for one, allows you to move debt to a 6 month interest free card. Most major banks have similar products.
-MM