How good does debt consolidation sound? Take all your credit cards and combine them together with one easy lower interest payment. Here are some things you should know that might change your perspective on it.
Debt consolidation does not help you pay down large amounts of debt and it doesn’t get you out of debt quickly. It’s a refinanced loan that extends your payment. That means you will be in debt longer. Our view is if you’re in debt, you should be working to get out of debt as quickly as possible!
They market low-interest rates, but that doesn’t always mean it will be lower. A lot of companies market an introductory promotion of a lower rate to get people in and then raise the rate over time.
This is a big one. You are only consolidating your debt. You are not eliminating it. It’s really easy for us to view debt consolidation as the first step to us getting out of debt, but the problem is… usually nothing changes after you consolidate. You have the same buying and spending behaviors.
To eliminate debt, you don’t need to consolidate, you need a plan to start paying off your debt quickly!!!
It starts with taking control of your money. Getting eyes on where it’s going. You have to start with a budget, so you can start allocating money from areas of spending to now going towards paying down debt.
If you have multiple cards, there are two ways to attack it. First, stop using the cards. Start using cash for your expenses so the amounts don’t increase on your cards while you are trying to pay them down.
Here’s where two strategies come in: If you’re looking strictly at the numbers, you should pay all the minimum payments except for the card with the highest interest rate. Put every dollar & energy towards paying that card off first. Once paid off, put everything plus the new amount saved by eliminating a card towards the second-highest interest and continue to do this until they are all paid off.
What studies have shown is people have a higher success rate when they follow this plan, but instead of paying the highest interest rate first, you pay the lowest amount owed regardless of the interest rate. It’s encouraging and motivating to see change and the card with the lowest amount is the easiest to pay off. Going from 4 cards to 3 builds your confidence because you’re seeing it working! It’s shown that more people making to paying off all their debt with this strategy even though they might be paying a little more in interest.
Remember, it’s not a consolidation problem, it’s a behavioral one and it will only be fixed by taking control over your money!
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