I don't care what you think.

Should I:
A. Continue to suffer under car payments and credit card debt until August 2008 when my car is paid off.
B. Get a home equity loan for the credit card debt.
C. Sell my car to kill my debt, borrow a car for the summer, buy a GC wagon in the fall, save for a swap.

 

LOL... well if you don't care what people think then I'm not voting

 

transfer to lower rate and try not charge up cards again or your even worse off than before / and give my car a tune in about a month to help out with debt

 

if you get a home equity loan for the deb then you will find yourself in even more debt for the next 15 years.

This is what I used to tell my customers who were in your same sort of situation.

You can consolidate all your CC dbts into one through a personal loan with a bank. This will give you one monthly repayment and also give it to you at a lower interest rate then your credit cards. Then after a couple of months re-evaluate your financial situation.

Do not refinance your car loan under any circumstances. In doing so you will be payingout huindreds more of the next 4-5 years in interest. Thats what is hurting you atm...the interest on everything.

Find out if your vehicle is worth more then what you owe on it. If you only have 18 months of payments left on it then there is a chance that you are not upside on that loan. Do you have gap insurance on your car? If you do and the vehicle is worth more then the value of the loan, call the back and cancel it. Did you purchase an extendend warranty on the car? If yes, cancel it and take the risk.

Whenever you have a fixed length loan, NEVER under any circumstances should you refinance that unless your bank manager is holding a gun to your head. It will only cost you more money.

Getting a personal loan to pay off your credit cards could be difficul but worth giving it a shot. A lot of will depend on how much shows up on your credit report in regards to monthly outgoings compared to how much income you have. The loan is often approved on what they cal DTI Ratio..Debt to Income Ratio.


If you do get the personal loan to pay off your credit cards then I would suggest leaving those CC acounts OPEN but cut up the cards so you cannot be tempted. Bnks look at what they call revolving credit

If you have $20,000 available in credit and you are at $15,000 of that limit then banks get nervous about giving you anymore. But if you are under 25% of your revolving credit then you are a banks best friend and they will throw money at you and push your credit score up.

Although I'm NOT a banker I have done several years work as a Finance Manager for car dealerships. I'm not an expert but I've been around the traps long enough to pick up a few good tips.

Hope my advice can help you in anyway.

 

I'm in debt because I was a ski bum for two winters. I don't regret it.

My car is worth about $10k-$11k more than I owe on it.

 

it is worth 10k over what you owe??

 

Then I put this suggestion to you. Sell your car privately. Pay off the loan and any extra money left over put that towards your credit card debts (I don't know how much debt you are in and it's really none of my business.) and then put the rest on a personal loan at a low interest rate.

Once you have done this, turn around and lease a car that has an AWESOME residual value. I'm sure one of the guys from White Bear or Morries can hook you up with an awesome lease on something like an 07 Impreza 2.5i It ain't no WRX but hey, the car is always under warranty and they can be picked up for just under $200 a month with only plates and fees due at signing. I think the term is for 36 months.

It's a possibility.

 

Yes, cup.

 

Another reason for this is that I kinda want a wagon now that I don't have a Jeep.

 

you need to evaluate what you want more...wagon or no debt?

 

Mike, I will personally bitch slap you if you get a home equity loan to pay off your CC debt. Seriously, STUPID IDEA.

unsecured debt > secured debt

I say sell the car and use the ~$10k towards an OBS + swap and then used your newfound ~$400/mo. towards debt payment.

And then get an engineering job and increase your income by 50%

 

I think if I took option #3 I would get a wagon AND no debt. It would just be a very slow wagon at first.

 

I think wrecked STi's are more expensive than we thought. Some of the ones out in CA I found on the internet were going for 10-12 thousand. Maybe if you found one in the midwest here somewhere where nobody was bidding on it you could do better.

 

Sounds rather reasonable to me. :biggrin:

You can fulfill your speed needs on your bike this summer, hehehe.

 

I could if it worked reliably. Its got some kind of electrical problem now. The ignition cuts out sometimes when I go over a big bump.

 

^^^ don't go over big bumps

 

You sound like more of an expert than most. OP or not, I'll take some of that advice, thanks. :biggthumpup:

 

dang..thats a rip.

 

If you have any plans for your life other than your car (ie, world travel, kids, etc.) I'd say pay off the debt ASAP. It's just not worth it in the long run.

I just paid off my last credit card debt last month and there's no other feeling, although I cheated a bit by using a portion of school loans to pay them off (sweet sweet grad school). But either way all I've got left is the car and school loans, most of which stands at like 2.8% (less than inflation I believe). You want to keep your debt in mortgage and, arguably, school loans and thats about it in.

If you're youngish (~25) you've got all of your 30's to do wild and crazy fun stuff like travel and have go fast toys. The more you pay off now, the more you'll have available for the expensive fun stuff. Kudos to you for doing the young and stupid fun stuff for a while with the snow bunny thing, you really only get one chance at that and you took it. Now it's time to lay low for bit so you can rock it out later.