Debt Consolidation Blog

You can perform your own debt consolidation simply by moving your credit card balances around. If you are carrying a balance on cards where you pay high interest rates, you should consider moving them to a new card that has a low promotional rate. This doesn’t provide you with a long term fix, but if you are able to temporarily lower your rate from 20% to 6% the savings can be quite high. Applying that savings toward paying off the principle will help you get out of debt more quickly.

Just make sure you understand the terms of your agreement. Some credit cards offer a special incentive (like the free laptop), but require that you keep a balance for a certian period of time. After a few months they are free to raise the interest rates, so make sure you read all the fine print and make sure transfering the balance will actually work to your advantage.

The ideal situation is to pay your credit cards off at the end of each month. However, if you are already carrying a balance, this do-it-yourself consolidation loan may benefit you. By consolidating several higher paying cards (or other debts) to a single payment at a lower interest rate, you’ve basically done what a debt consolidation service would do for you…but a no cost.