How to Consolidate Credit Card Debt

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Marie Enomoto from Consumer Credit Counseling Service and today we're going to talk on how to consolidate credit card debt. If you have some credit card debt in several credit cards, and you want to make it one, you can do two things. First thing is to see if you can do it on your own. By asking for a personal loan for example that have a low interest rate compared to the ones that you are paying through your credit cards. And just transfer the balances. Use the personal loans to pay off the balances on the credit cards and just pay the personal loan with this lower interest rate and of course a payment that you are going to be able to afford according to your spending plan. One good tip on this is if you do your own consolidation, just make sure that you are not going to be using those credit cards again, because if you do what you are going to be doing is actually increasing your debt. So you can do your own consolidation program, you can take a loan, a personal loan. Or transfer all those balances to a lower, less expensive credit card, and start paying only on this one credit card and avoid using the other ones. Just to make sure you going to be out of debt. If your credit history is not good to guarantee you a really good personal loan or a good credit card where you can transfer your balances. What you can do is to meet with a credit counselor. You can go to any credit counseling agency, better if you were with a non-profit one so you're not going to be paying that many fees. And this agency usually has a consolidation program, where you can enroll your accounts. The agencies usually have better rates because they already have agreements with the creditors, and can guarantee you a fixed payment and a fixed interest rate. Which will be able to get you out of that in five years or less. So you can do two things if you are thinking of doing a consolidation program for your credit card debts. Do it on your own just make sure you're not going to be using any more credit cards, or if you don't think that your own thing is going to work. You can usually you can use any of the consolidation programs that a number of agencies offer."