Debt Consolidation, trade down car, or both?
'm a recent graduate, working full time (started in January). I have an average of 21.318% APR across 5 credit cards with a debt totaling $11,137, at $302 monthly min.
- CC #1: $2493 at 13.4%, $62 monthly min
- CC #2: $1289 at 17.4%, $26 monthly min
- CC #3: $5183 at 27%, $169 monthly min
- CC #4: $496 at 22.8%, $20 monthly min
- CC #5: $1126 at 25.99%, $25 monthly min
A few days ago I went to Wells Fargo to apply for a Debt Consolidation Loan and their terms are $11,523 (think they see a higher amount I owe?) at 21.755% interest for 60 months. minimum of $320 per month.
Also, 1.5 months ago I got myself a new car (2015 Mustang GT :) ), that's $33650.07 total, 5.79% APR, at $559.28 monthly, 72 months.
My income is $57,717, and with other monthly bills and a set amount for food/other, I'm pretty much dead even in income to expenses. So technically I can make it by. My wife will soon be able to pay half the monthly rent, so that's $550 extra per month for me.
My credit score is around 680-700.
My questions is pretty much: is this debt consolidation deal worth it? Should I just trade down my car? or both?
According to the account statements for my CC's, the payoff at minimums will be between 130 months to 228 months, and the loan will be 60 months. so although the APR is about the same, having a shorter/set timeframe to getting rid of my debt is nice. I know I need to close most of these cards and not use them to avoid getting into the same situation.
can trade down my car for a $10k-$15k car and hopefully the difference in what my car is worth and the payoff amount (my car is worth about $28k on KBB) will be tacked on to this new car and with at least an OK apr, since I only had this car for about 1.5 months. I'm hoping for around $350 monthly or less with a cheaper car. Or both? will doing a debt consolidation show up to the car dealership and significantly affect my new car app if I do both within a week span?
I would like to correct a little of the math in your question, and then I will talk about my recommendations to you.
First, the average interest rate of your credit cards is 22.32%, when you take it as a whole. The average of the rates needs to be weighted by how much you owe at each rate.
Second, I don't get the same total when I add up the credit card debts as you did. For the rest of this answer, I'll assume that your total is correct and your individual amounts are a little off.
Third, the numbers that you see on your credit card statements for how long it will take to pay off the debt by paying the minimum payment are misleading, if you are committed to paying off all your debt. The reason is that once you get one of the credit cards paid off, you can take the money you were sending to that credit card each month and use it to start paying extra on another credit card. You keep doing that until you only have one credit card left, and all $302 you are currently sending to all your credit cards goes to the one that is left. (This is popularly called a "debt snowball," because your payments build together and get bigger as you eliminate individual debts.) If you do this, you would be done paying all five of your credit cards ($11137) paying no more than $302 a month in 63 months.