What would you do?

[Gohackyourself]

Ok, here goes.

Split with ex 4 years ago and built up a fair bit of debt whilst sorting out.
I'm in a good paying job, been in 12 years, as most companies we re entering frugal times so in mid transformation process- my job and wages could change but unlikely.

Currently have around 14k of debt on cc's.
Only repaying the minimum each month for while but in better position now with spare cash.
Trouble is that spare cash id like to start saving so I don't get into same position again.

Was thinking of taking out a loan for say 4 years that equals the payments I'm making now but it would actually be paying it off, then I'm able to save my cash alongside to quite a considerable figure.

Or do I plough the extra monies across all the cc's and try to get them down?

Wwyd??

I'd pay them down consolidation loans aren't easy to get at reasonable interest rates.

What interest rate are you paying on the cards?

Consolidation loans are a bad idea unless you are extremely disciplined. The majority of people consolidate and then run up debt again because they haven't fixed the issue. I'd build up a reserve of £500/£1000 for emergencies (depending on your responsibilities i.e homeowner or carowner) and then start to plough that money onto the credit cards.

If you can prove that you can do this and you're disciplined enough then maybe start looking at loans.

17.18% -
Loans seem to be about same rate would roughly pay £3k in interest which I figured was same as interest?!

You will be lucky to get more than £1% interest on saving though. It makes no sense to do anything other than pay down as much as you can every month to get rid of your debt first. Starting with the highest paying interest rate if they are on different cards.

Backforgood- not worried about savings interest rates- would just like some savings!!:-)

Can you balance transfer? If you could get 0% or 6% it would help.

They quoted me 20% for consolidation loans years ago, reason being people got into debt again.

So I paid them off one at a time, highest interest first.

Have a look on money saving expert credit card debt.

There's no point having a grand sat there earning no interest, while you pay 17% interest on another grand of credit card debt! If an emergency truly hits you will still be able to use the credit cards even if you've paid them down (although I hope you will cancel them as you pay them off, but you get my point, it will be a while before you have none. If you are worried about using them in a non emergency you could try the freezing a card in a block of ice trick).
You can do it!

Forget about savings for now. Interest rates for savings are so low (1%?!) there is no point. You need to throw all your money at that debt and get rid of it as soon as you can.

Money Saving Expert has great advice:-

www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan

Thanks all

Done some shopping around on mse site- managed to balance transfer 2 cards to 2 other cards on 0% for 25 months so that will help start cutting into it all too.

0% will help loads.

What are you planning to pay each month?

£560 per month will clear those cards in 25 months. If you can manage that (or more) then I'd go flat out to do that. If not, make a not in your diary to balance transfer again when the 0% deal ends (to another 0% deal of course!).

Best way to pay them off is maintain a minimum payment i.e. Do not do a ds that pays off the uni mum balance fix it at a certain amount so that ever month you are paying a bit extra off. As well as throwing every spare penny at the one with the highest rate/balance.