Is it a good idea to consolidate a bunch of small loans into one personal loan?

It depends what your needs are, do you need a better cash flow. Doing this will lower your monthly payments however, this will extend the length you will be paying. In turn you will be paying more in interest. If that does not bother you and you are having a hard time meeting the month to month payment of individual loans then by all means do so, if you are fine I would not recommend it out of convinience.

Depends on if you will follow through on the REAL purpose of loan consolidation>>> ELIMINATING debt. Using the personal loan route will give a higher interest than the secured home equity loan route... So its not as good. Neither is a good plan if you won't QUIT CHARGING on the credit cards. If spending habits don't change you'll just dig a deeper hole.

This is usually a very bad idea, not for fiscal reasons, but for psychological ones. If you have a dozen small loans, you can attack them one at a time...pay minimums on all but the smallest, throw everything you can at the smallest until it's gone, then move onto the next. Each time you pay one off, you get an ego boost that will keep you focussed on getting rid of your debt. If you put all the debt in one pot, you are more likely to take on additional debt. It's like eating hot dogs...you are far more likely to be able to eat 12 hot dogs if each is on a different plate brought to you one at a time than if faced with a huge pile of a dozen at once!

I have just about as much debt (38000), but it's all on 0% introductory rates, which I am making money on- (see this book for details: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1600200... ) Debt isn't necessarily BAD. In your case, however, it appears that you probably don't have the assets to cover all that debt. You can still look into transferring balances to lower-interest rates (watch the fees on those transfers!). If you have any savings- pay off your debt. The less debt you have that's costing you 15% or more, the more it makes your savings worthless. To answer your question, though- sometimes those relief programs work, but they usually end up costing you more in the long term. If they have a lower rate than what you're paying and the transfer fees are resonable (limit of $100), you should consider it. Then you can negotiate with the newly balance-free credit cards for lower interest or close your card and they're sure to offer you better deals. Read up on the above book (How to Take advantage of the people who are taking advantage of you) it's a great resource! Good luck!

It is always a good idea, as long as you are 1) Not paying a higher average rate of interest 2) Don't exceed the amount of time it would have taken you to pay them off... For example: Visa - 2 years to pay off Car loan - 4 years to pay off Vacation loan - 3 years to pay off What I would do it make sure that the loan is no longer than 3 years, because that's the average, and as long as the interest rate is matching, or lower than the rates that you have, you'll have them all paid off and you won't have spent any extra money on interest!! If you have debt that's at a really low rate, keep that one, and consolidate the rest into one loan...using the suggestion above

yes it would, you would pay less for interest, and its all in one bill so you don't have to keep track of so much, if you go to the bank they will actaully consolidate your loans for you if you tell them all the accounts, so you don't even have to worry about paying them off

I think you need to separate out the different types of loans that you have. Auto loans typically have lower interest rates such as 7%, because lenders view them as less risk since they could always repo the car. You should probably continue to make payments on the auto loan, separate from the credit cards. When it comes to the credit cards, my guess is that the rate on an uncollateralized personal loan will be no better than the credit cards. In fact, you may be able to move your credit card balances around to new cards to take advantage of low teaser rates. The only loan that may make sense is a home equity loan, since the rate may be a lot lower because it is backed by your home. I am not a big fan of using home equity loans to wipe out credit card debt, because you are basically using your home to extend your payments and giving yourself room to practice those bad spending habits and run your credit cards back up. Here is what I did. I kept my credit cards. I called the companies to see if they would give me better rates. If you threaten to leave them, they will almost always give you better rates if you have a good history with them. I would then pay the minimum payments on the cards with the lowest rates. I would pay as much as I could toward the card with the highest rate. Once this one is paid off, I would move on to the one with the next highest rate, and so on until they are all gone and you are out of debt. The other advantage of this approach is that you feel a sense of accomplishment as you pay off and close each card. Beyond all of that, you should cut up your cards and keep one strictly for an emergency. Don't use it otherwise! Maybe you should even keep this in a drawer. Learn to live on cash. Live within your means. I did this, and the only debt I have now is a house. Good luck!

Combination of various high interest loans into a single one, it is called debt consolidation. The aim behind debt consolidation is to reduce the payments or the interest rate. Opt for a debt consolidation loan: The easiest method of getting a debt consolidation loan is to utilize the equity of your home. Equity of your home is calculated and determined by the difference in the amount you have paid and the amount you owe. If the amount you have paid is more than the amount due, you can use it as collateral. This allows you to borrow money on lower interest rates. Besides, you also get tax benefit on this type of loan. Consult your tax advisor before opting for this loan.