Hey man, came across this while having an 11pm existential crisis (on a work night too!) about my debt and my money woes. working to better myself but had a quick question. If you have debt on multiple cards, how do you go about tackling the second one after you've brought things back to normal on your main card? Best Companies for Personal Loans/Debt Consolidation? I'm trying to do some debt consolidation and looking to see which company/bank is best to take a personal loan out to accomplish this. I am primarily trying to clear up my credit card debt which is about 21k total. I do have an auto loan that I'm paying but just want to simplify my expenses. As someone who has had a debt consolidation personal loan in the past, its actually a pretty high interest rate if you have a poor credit score. Around 16-19% through the big 4 - much the same as a credit card. They're a debt settlement company, not a consolidation company. Basically, you 'hire' them and start paying them, and then they try to strong-arm your creditors into accepting a settlement. This will almost certainly destroy your credit. Debt consolidation loans are a great way to double your debt, ask me how I know lol. The danger with debt consolidation is your cards are now free to use and you can quickly run up your debt on them again if you arent disciplined. Then you have maxed out cards again AND a debt consolidation loan. Is debt consolidation the best path? No. Better is to cut expenses, increase income, and pay off your debt. Consider a second job. Debt consolidation firms are notoriously shitty. I would seek out greater income to give yourself more capital to pay off the debt. Grab some extra shifts, a weekend/night job, etc. Then attack the debt. Check out the Prime Directive on this sub to learn about the snowball vs avalanche method of paying off debt and chooses whats right for you. If that’s the case, any discussion of debt consolidation needs to start with how to raise your income or cut your expenses - because the reality is, debt consolidation is a bandaid at best, and your situation will get worse if you already aren’t able to pay your bills. Hi all! Looking for advice on whether a debt consolidation loan is a good idea and if so, any recommendations on who to take out a loan from? Alternatively, you could see how much debt consolidation loan you could get approved for now and pay off some of the larger card debts with that and then try to knock out the smaller debts yourself which would eventually leave you with just the consolidation loan payment.