“Dear Steve,
I am recently married and have $12,000 in credit card debt. I would like to take out a personal loan with a lower interest rate to get it paid within the next 2 1/2 years…much quicker. My husband is worried that it will affect our credit score and we won’t be able to buy a home after.
Would it be better to keep paying the high interest cards or take out the loan?
Tiffany”
The Answer:
Dear Tiffany,
I would strongly recommend that you first look at the debt consolidation loans available through the peer-to-peer lending network LendingClub. Since LendingClub.com is a network of small lenders you can often get much better rates than you could elsewhere.
You owe it to yourself to check out the rates from LendingClub and my standing offer is that for each person that decides to go the LendingClub.com route and applies through my site I will gladly invest in their loan in order to help fund it.
If you payoff the credit card debt, but don’t close the oldest cards, the LendingClub.com debt won’t hurt your credit. Since it will be reported to the credit bureaus and you will pay it on time it will only help your credit.
In fact, a group of use finance bloggers have been writing about the advantages of LendingClub.com. See Debt Free Adventure, Debt Kid, The Digerati Life, and Flexo.
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