I talked it over with Matt, and aside from some concern that I do some more research to confirm their legitimacy (this was before yesterday's info-gathering session), he thought it sounded like a good idea. So I think I'm going to go for it. Right now I'm paying well over $300/month to credit cards, and at this rate it's going to take at least 40 months to pay them off, IF I stay diligent and don't ever slack off from making extra payments. If I can get approved for a consolidation loan at a max interest rate of 15%, that will knock my monthly credit-related debt payouts down to about $225, guaranteed to be paid off in three years.
I need to run this by Matt one more time, just to be sure there won't be any "I didn't realize we actually decided to this" discussions in the future, but my mind's pretty well made up. I think I'll try to do it on my own first, without joining a group, because there can be group fees and I'd prefer to avoid those. The worst that can happen is I won't get any bids, and if that happens I'll apply to some groups and then re-list and see where that gets me. But I'm reasonably confident that I can show that, despite poor management in my younger days, I've grown up into someone who is responsible and on top of her finances.
I'll let you know how it goes.
6 comments:
Please please PLEASE let us know how this goes and your final thoughts on it. Me and wife, at her insistance, tried to use a credit card as a buffer between our bank account and the gaping maw that is our bank's hefty overdraft penalty. The result? The credit cards multiplied like rabbits, and now we've got debt. It's not a staggering amount, by any stretch, but it is way more than we had a year and a half ago, and I want to end the cycle as quickly as possible. I'll be watching with baited breathe and hopeful heart.
Benticore
Out
Wow, a visit from Benticore, with a comment no less. I feel kind of honored.
I'll definitely keep you posted. It will probably be next week before I start the process, just so I can take the weekend and be sure I've considered all the angles (I sometimes have a tendency to be too impulsive, which is how I ended up with so much debt in the first place; now I tend to overcompensate for it by dragging my feet), but I'll probably report on it as I go.
I'm glad you found what I wrote about Prosper helpful. It really was the last piece of the puzzle to our debt reduction plan.
If you do decide to go forward with Prosper, make sure that you do show how responsible you are now. Even though I had my blog, lenders there still doubted me. One lender questioned me quite thoroughly and he even still has some doubt as to whether I would pay back the loan or not.
If I could go back and redo my listing, I definitely would have shown a budget with and without the Prosper loan. While some lenders like the personal aspect of Prosper, they all want to see that you can and will pay back the loan.
I wish you all the best, and if you have any specific questions, let me know.
Thanks for stopping by. I'm pretty psyched about this. If I can get my husband on the same page, then I'm pretty sure this is the answer to our debt reduction. We're not in dire financial straits, thankfully--we're just extremely tired of carrying so much interest, and the sooner we can be done with these debts, the better.
I'm an average lender on prosper right now (little over 100 loans), and my main advice is to clear up any delinquincies that you can, and contact someone who knows what they're doing (or search the forums at least) to learn how to submit a good loan request. You can easily pay 2-3% more than you should because of a mistake in your request, and I won't even bid on borrowers with more than 1 current DQ.
Thanks for the advice. I've moved my Prosper ramblings over to my new personal finance blog at http://jmbauhaus.com/money/ , and as I said there, I think I'm going to see if I can qualify for a lower interest bank loan before I relist on Prosper. I've been operating on the assumption that I wouldn't be able to get one, but you know what they say about people who assume. I think I need to find out for certain before I do anything else.
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