3 Things You Need to Know About Credit Card Debt Consolidation
Credit card debt consolidation is becoming an increasingly-common topic of interest. With more and more families struggling to make ends meet, we’re all trying to find ways to reduce monthly expenses.
Before you jump into any consolidation program, however, there are some things you need to consider.
1. Don’t Go Jump into A Home Equity Loan
A home equity loan may once have been a great way to consolidate debt, but that’s no longer the case. While a home equity loan may carry a lower interest rate than what your credit card currently does, your credit card debt is an unsecured debt and a home equity loan is not.
If, for some reason, you can no longer make your credit card payments your credit rating will indeed take a hit.
If, however, you use a home equity loan for credit card debt consolidation and then can’t make those payments, you’re going to lose your home.
2. Be Wary of Pie-in-the-Sky Promises
There are companies out there promising that you can pay off all your debt for pennies on the dollar. Don’t fall into the trap. These services are not offering credit card debt consolidation.
When you see a company offering to eliminate your credit card debt for just a fraction of what you owe, they’re talking about debt settlement. Debt settlement is not the same as consolidation.
Your credit will be affected and you may be responsible for paying taxes for any of the debt the credit card company forgives.
3. It Won’t Help if You Don’t Make Changes
The most important thing to remember about credit card debt consolidation is that it won’t help if you pay off your debt and then max out your cards again. You need to change your spending habits and understand how you got to this point in the first place.
Many credit card debt consolidation services offer budget planning and credit counseling for consumers who enroll in their programs. Take advantage of these offerings if you want to avoid ending up back at square one. They can teach you what, and what not, to do in order to maintain healthy finances.
If you really want to secure your financial future, getting a handle on your debt is the place to start. Credit card debt consolidation is a means to that end. Make sure you keep the above three tips in mind when pursuing this avenue of financial reparation.
Watch the video related to credit card payment
SmartSwipe is the dream child of a young entrepreneur from the city of Regina in the Province of Saskatchewan, Canada. He plans to revolutionize the current online payment process used by millions of online shoppers when conducting online credit card transactions, and replace PayPal as the number 1 trusted method of making online credit card purchases. For an in-depth review of the technology and its applications, visit: www.yourworldtoday.ca
Help answer the question about credit card payment
How much over my minimum monthly credit card payment must I pay for it to improve my credit?I know that paying more than my minimum monthly credit card payment will improve my credit. But how much more do I have to pay? $1? 50%?
August 11th, 2010 at 9:28 am
The best place to go is http://www.prosper.com.
This is a peer to peer lending website. You can get a loan with a three year term for up to $25,000. At the end of the term, you'd be out of debt. You'd need to make enough money to cover your payments, of course. And also, please keep in mind that these are real people taking a chance with their own money to try to help people out, so do the right thing.
August 11th, 2010 at 8:55 am
@DerekMerdinyan
They are marketing this device specifically for the iphone though, which does have a camera.
There’s already software to read barcodes with the camera,
so you can check prices in the stores and
get comparison prices from other stores.
Desktops don’t have a minijack that you can use for this anyway.
There it would need usb or firewire.
August 11th, 2010 at 9:21 am
isn’t it 2.9%?
August 11th, 2010 at 6:36 pm
Those are fair points. I’m not defending them but I think this is why they created the device:
1). Yes you can, but it’s faster to swipe. In a retail setting, some people get nervous when they read their number out loud or if a cashier has to manually enter a number.
2). Snapping a picture is an interesting way to do this. The Square, makes it possible to quickly receive the numbers via a phone, or, in the future, from any device w/ a 3.5 mm jack (no camera required).
August 12th, 2010 at 8:10 am
how did you get a proto type?
August 13th, 2010 at 2:57 am
True, but not all devices have cameras. iPad, iPod Touch, and even some desktops/laptops.
They may have considered the idea, but I think the 3.5mm jack is more prevalent than a camera.
August 13th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
@DerekMerdinyan
All modern phones have a camera.
August 14th, 2010 at 8:34 am
Pointless device.
1 – You could just type in the credit card information manually. It’s the same.
2 – It would make WAY more sense to just snap a picture of the front of the credit card, and have the application recognize the credit card number from that picture. All existing and easy technology and no need for extra devices.