B
Back2Good
Guest
I know that dozens of folks are probably going to jump on this and tell me what a ripoff Lending Tree is, but in my case it has been a godsend. My wife went through a bout of depression when our youngest daughter left the nest, and ran up a considerable sum in credit card debt to make herself feel better...Which not only resulted in our having to pay out a huge amount of money each payday on credit card bills, often only able to pay $10 or $20 more than the minimum payment, but left my credit rating in shambles (debt to income ratio).
If you have good credit, you can get a bill consolidation loan from a bank at a considerably lower interest rate than what Lending Tree applies, but when your credit score is barely over 600, the banks won't touch you. So after reviewing the interest rates on our cards and satisfying myself that I'd be saving 10-12% in interest fees even at Lending Tree's rate, on top of cutting the amount of money we were paying out per month in half, it was sort of a no-brainer to go ahead and consolidate through them. I was worried that with my credit score the amount I needed wouldn't be approved, but I received the approval email today - Funds will be in my bank account this week, and I'll be able to spend a joyful afternoon calling up credit card companies to pay them off and close the account.
I'm leaving us with two cards, both 9% interest rate accounts with $5,000 credit limits - Not to be carried in our wallets, but to be stored in the safe for emergencies. The rest of them will be history, and the consolidation loan payment is easily manageable, even if it is a 60-month loan - There's no pre-payment penalty, so I can make extra payments against the principal as often as possible, and cut that 60 months down to 48 months or so.
Oh, what a relief it is. For what it's worth, I did compare Lending Tree's offer with those of a couple of other bill consolidation firms, and their rate was significantly lower than the others - I didn't just respond to an email offer, I did plenty of research on the matter before committing to it. I'd advise anyone else considering a bill consolidation loan to do the same - Rates vary from week to week sometimes, and next week someone else's rate might beat Lending Tree's.
Best,
- b2g
If you have good credit, you can get a bill consolidation loan from a bank at a considerably lower interest rate than what Lending Tree applies, but when your credit score is barely over 600, the banks won't touch you. So after reviewing the interest rates on our cards and satisfying myself that I'd be saving 10-12% in interest fees even at Lending Tree's rate, on top of cutting the amount of money we were paying out per month in half, it was sort of a no-brainer to go ahead and consolidate through them. I was worried that with my credit score the amount I needed wouldn't be approved, but I received the approval email today - Funds will be in my bank account this week, and I'll be able to spend a joyful afternoon calling up credit card companies to pay them off and close the account.
I'm leaving us with two cards, both 9% interest rate accounts with $5,000 credit limits - Not to be carried in our wallets, but to be stored in the safe for emergencies. The rest of them will be history, and the consolidation loan payment is easily manageable, even if it is a 60-month loan - There's no pre-payment penalty, so I can make extra payments against the principal as often as possible, and cut that 60 months down to 48 months or so.
Oh, what a relief it is. For what it's worth, I did compare Lending Tree's offer with those of a couple of other bill consolidation firms, and their rate was significantly lower than the others - I didn't just respond to an email offer, I did plenty of research on the matter before committing to it. I'd advise anyone else considering a bill consolidation loan to do the same - Rates vary from week to week sometimes, and next week someone else's rate might beat Lending Tree's.
Best,
- b2g
