The Credit Card Juggling Act
By Ryan Healy | February 28, 2008
Debt reduction is especially difficult when you have too many accounts and outstanding balances to juggle. Or at least it’s difficult for me. With so many separate statements and bills and due dates, it’s easy to overlook one… and get hit with a late fee or interest rate increase.
Currently, we have eight outstanding balances, not to mention all the routine monthly bills we pay (I can count at least eight off the top of my head).
Too many monthly bills creates stress, anxiety, and confusion. Which is one reason I’m thinking of consolidating some of my balances into a single loan. If I did this, I might be able to reduce my number of outstanding balances from eight to three, which would be much more manageable.
[2 hours later…]
Well, I hate writing about WHAT I WILL DO. I prefer to write about WHAT I HAVE DONE. So I have officially signed up at Prosper.com and created a loan request to consolidate two particularly nasty credit card balances: the CitiCard and Bank of America card.
I don’t remember who exactly persuaded me to try Prosper, so I went to Amanda’s web site at Me vs. Debt and clicked her Prosper link before signing up so she would get a referral fee.
I then went through the rather lengthy process of typing in my personal information and creating a loan listing. Instead of using a boring title like “Pay off credit cards,” I wrote this instead:
“Hitting CitiGroup and Bank of America where it hurts…”
We’ll see if my copywriting skills do me any favors. 
You can see my complete Prosper listing here.
Anyhow, the whole gist of this post is that managing too many outstanding balances can be a real pain in the butt, and can lead to unnecessary late fees, etc. So I’ve taken a step toward resolving that problem. If my Prosper loan gets funded, I will have traded two outstanding balances for one.
Better yet, I feel more positive about Prosper than I do about CitiGroup and Bank of America. I’d much rather send my money to a group of concerned private lenders than an uncaring and unethical corporation.
If you’ve got a lot of outstanding balances, what have you done to consolidate? What have you done to simplify? Was it worth it? Leave a comment below.
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Topics: Credit Cards, Debt Reduction |
February 28th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
If I weren’t so close to paying off my Citicard and didn’t have a 0% APR right now, I’d be tempted by that listing! Anything to get my revenge on Citibank.
February 29th, 2008 at 7:56 am
That’s funny, Lynnae! I remember reading about your nightmare story with Citibank.
But just keep doing what you’re doing. You’re almost out of the woods!
February 29th, 2008 at 9:02 am
And you’re already funded! I love the title. Thanks for using my referral link. I believe I’ll get $50 for your sign up. I’m going to re-invest that money in… you
I’ll be placing a bid for $50 at 1% as soon as the funds transfer. Hopefully that will help drive down your rate!
Thanks again,
Amanda
March 2nd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Ryan, awesome post I never really thought of Prosper in that way of consolidating. Sounds like a valid idea especially if you want to get out of debt in a hurry.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:52 am
The title was fun to come up with… glad you like it. And thank you, Amanda! That’s very generous of you.
Rick - If it weren’t for other bloggers, I wouldn’t have known about Prosper either. I decided to give it a try to eliminate the two worst accounts I have.
June 30th, 2008 at 11:18 am
[…] I find it very troublesome to juggle multiple credit cards and loan balances. The more of them you have, the easier it is to overlook a statement or bill and […]