I’ve been pondering this past week whether or not I should consolidate my debt and get a loan to pay it off. This would accomplish several things for me:

1. I would only have one payment to make every month, which is kind of nice. It’s a bit of a hassle dealing with debt payments that go to several different places at different times of the month.
2. I would be able to cancel the Evil Line of Credit, lower the amount on my Nice Line of Credit (this would be my backup emergency fund, and would be immediately un-attached from my banking card.), and cancel two of my four credit cards.

The biggest reason why I’m hesitating doing it is because I would definitely lose out on the interest savings I’m getting with my debt on a couple of the credit cards right now. Remember, I’ve got a balance on one that’s at 0% till the end of the year, and then another that’s at 3% till November. My two Lines of Credit are in the single digits interest rate-wise (around 8% each), so I’m not paying huge amounts of interest there either. If I did a consolidation loan, I would probably have a similar rate (just above or below 10%, I’m guessing), which still is better than credit card regular rates, however I’m not sure if that’s the right move for me. I’d be missing out on a lower rate on almost half of my debt (that’s all on one card right now.) But considering that rate expires at the end of the year anyways, it might be just worth it to wait till the end of the year, then call up the credit card companies and see what they could do for me. If they can keep the rate lower than say, 5%, it’s worth it to leave things the way they are. But if they’re going to raise it into the 10% range anyways, I might as well do the consolidation loan as at the very least life would be a little easier, right?

What do you think? Do I investigate this option now or wait till the end of the year?

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