I have gotten myself into a little bit of a pickle with credit card debts, and I don’t want to keep transferring the balances as I don’t think my credit rating is all that great as it is, and don’t want to damage it any further.

I have been thinking about getting a personal loan to pay off my cards, cut my cards up and get back on my feet. Whilst visiting www.moneysavingexpert.com I came across a section on Credit Unions.

I visited the link of my local credit union, and it seems too good to be true – they offer a rate of 9.9% to everyone, regardless of personal circumstances/amount borrowed and credit rating.

I realise I have to join, and pay an amount to a savings account with them each month, but they also stipulate that you can pay as little as £1 per month.

What’s the catch? It seems like the perfect solution.

I think the loans may be based on affordability, which I hope there shouldn’t be any problem with. I still live at home, and manage to make regular payments each month to cover all my cards/car insurance/phone bills etc. The loan repayment would work out cheaper than what I am having to pay monthly as it is.

My girlfriend and I are looking to buy our first home together whilst the market is still fairly cheap and there is a holiday on stamp duty. We have already been to see a mortgage advisor who said they could give us £200K mortgage – naturally we will not be using all of this. However we have recently taken out a loan to consolidate our finances and were wondering will this affect whether or not we can still get a mortgage?

We both work full time, I am a manager and she is a teacher, we pay all our bills by direct debit and they are never late. We have mobile phones, car insurance etc to prove our ability to pay back credit, but no credit cards. We are only 23 and 24 so as such do not have enough experience in life to have fantastic credit scores, however we are both well paid (in the current market – upwards of £20K each) and rent an unfurnished property at the moment.

We appreciate any help you can give us as soon as possible as we have seen a house we would quite like to make an offer on.
Sorry, maybe I wasn’t clear we are using the loan to pay off a few existing loans to consolidate them; the sum of our finances we are consolidating is £370, but we are paying £350 on the loan?

I want to borrow some extra money for school (not a school loan). Is there any where I can go to find the best interest rates for a personal loan like they do for car insurance?

They’ve got groceries, clothes, electrical & electronics, furniture, car insurance, loans, credit cards, mobile phones and now, some sort of a comparison site.

Have they gone too far and grown too big?
jamand: LOL.. would you do it on the conveyor belt on in your trolley?