Legitimate loans

When you have debt, it’s not uncommon to feel that it is insurmountable. The bills keep coming in the mail and you begin to wonder what options there might be for help getting out of debt. One of the methods people often turn to – to make debt more manageable – is debt consolidation. While it’s not the right choice for everyone, debt consolidation can be helpful for some people.

Consolidation can put all your debt into one loan so that instead of keeping track of several debt payments each month you only need to make one payment. And it can lower your interest rate. But there are some predatory companies out there that advertise “debt consolidation” and charge lots of unnecessary fees. So how can you get a legitimate debt consolidation loan? And is there even such a thing? Below we’ll examine these two questions.

The Main Types of Debt Consolidation

There are a few ways of doing debt consolidation. The first is the most common and most straightforward: you take out a debt consolidation loan from a lender and replace all your previous debts with a larger loan (hopefully with a lower interest rate or better payment terms). Since a debt consolidation loan generally comes with one interest rate and one payment, it can make it easier to pay down and can also possibly save you money.

But where do you get a debt consolidation loan? One place you can go is your local credit union or bank. If you have a relatively good credit score, they will often be happy to give you a debt consolidation loan. Another place you can go is a peer-to-peer lender. Peer to peer lenders, such as Prosper and Lending Club, use investments from individuals to fund consolidation loans to other individuals (you can get pre-qualified for these lenders with our debt consolidation tool). This is especially powerful if you have high-interest debt (a $10, 000 credit card balance at 20% interest, for example). The loan you get from a peer-to-peer lender will usually be at a lower interest rate and will make it easier to pay off your debt.

(Users of ReadyForZero can automatically be eligible for such loans through the Savings Platform)

Another type of debt consolidation is the kind that’s advertised by debt management companies and practiced by credit counselors. In this method, you let the organization manage your debt repayment. This is where you have to be very careful, because some companies take advantage of people. Usually, with reputable organizations, you make a payment to the organization, and the money is distributed to your creditors.

A third option is doing a credit card balance transfer, in which you open a new credit card and move your existing balances to that new card. These balance transfer cards typically come with an offer of 0% interest, at least for the first 12-18 months. Just be sure to read the fine print when signing up for these cards – and try to pay off the balance in the “introductory” time period if possible.

Borrow up to $35, 000

Interesting facts

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