credit card 1 - $9700 balance at 14.99 (min pay 200)
credit card 2 - $3500 balance at 10.90 (min pay 90)
credit card 3 - $3200 balance at 0% until 11/2015 22.99 after (min pay 65)
credit card 4 - $7500 balance at 11.99 (min pay 140) have been paying 200
auto loan 1 - $2500 at 2.99% (min pay 67)
auto loan 2 - $7600 at 2.99% (min pay 146)
medical bill 1 - $1750 at 0% (min pay 65) (no interest until Feb 2016, not sure what rate after)
The credit card 3 was a balance transfer deal that cleared out our Sears/Lowes/Capital one card that all had 22-26% apr.
Additional detail that is a big contributing factor, my wife is 6 mo's pregnant (yay 1st baby!) and we're really concerned that our cash flow will struggle to have the new added expenses, (health insurance premium plus new medical bill and obviously baby-related things) We've been prepaying the doctor bill ($237/m) until 1/2015 that covers prenatal and delivery, but i'm not sure what bill will come after the actual delivery from the hospital itself?
Some other notes, we have about $4000 monthly income after tax, and our budget currently covers about $2400 for everything (mortgage, utilities, grocery, car insurance, health/dental insurance)
out of the $1600 remaining we've been paying the debts above about $850/m with $237 going to the doctor's office and saving the last 400-500, we have about 2000 in the checking account, which we try to keep $1500 as our "zero" just as the backup that has covered more misc expenses (oil change/new tire/pet vet visits/life curb-ball fund)
We also have planned expense of around 1000 to get all the baby things we need.
So basically, is a debt consolidation loan of ~$35000 a good idea to get out monthly outgoing reduced and possibly save on interest in the long run? A lot of our debt buildup was from living way outside our means after some employment changes from 2008-2013, but we have not been adding any new debts during 2014 (aside from the baby medical) and we've gotten the budget back under control so we're not actually using any credit cards to pay for anything in almost a year. My credit union (Navy Federal) has a 13.25% apr for 61-180 mos offer, is that decent, is there a target rate I could go for that makes a huge difference in our numbers?
I really appreciate any and all advice fellow forumers can give! I just get very worried that i'm going about handling our finances incorrectly and that there might be better ways to help us climb out of our debt.Statistics: Posted by Nana123 — Thu Apr 13, 2023 8:59 am
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