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Digital News Report – The reality of high interest credit cards and other loans may be causing a financial burden on a month-to-month basis. If you have been faced with a difficult time paying off your credit card minimum balance and are coming up short for necessary living expenses, such as food and shelter, then you might want to consider checking out debt consolidation programs.
Debt consolidation programs takes your existing loans, which could include student loans, personal loans, credit cards loans, and other unsecured loans and creating one new loan. The benefits to getting a debt consolidation loan is to lower the interest rate, getting a fixed interest rate, and lowering the monthly payment that is due each month.
If you have outstanding credit score, you might be able to get an unsecured loan for the debt consolidation. But if you have a poor credit score you will more than likely qualify for a bad credit debt consolidation loan, which often times comes with securing property against the loan, usually in the form of a home equity second mortgage loan. You could lose your home if you fail to make the payments on the secured loans. But if you do take out a second home loan you can deduct the interest paid on you taxes.
If you go with an unsecured loan, your interest rate could be higher than if you would get a secured loan. Also check with the debt consolidation program to make sure that they are quoting you a fixed rate. Sometimes home equity loans will allow you to lock in a portion of the loan to a fixed rate. When you have adjustable rate interest, your monthly payments can increase or decrease from month-to-month. This could create a financial hardship making it difficult to pay back the debt consolidation loan.
There are other options available to get rid of credit card debt, with debt settlement and bankruptcy options. Every person facing financial hardship should research all options and shop around before making any financial commitments.
By: Victoria Brown