You’re having a hard time with your debts and you’ve tried to get a debt consolidation loan. Unfortunately, you don’t have enough equity in your home to get either a home equity loan or home equity line of credit. You applied for an unsecured loan at your bank or credit union but were turned down. You’re receiving calls from a debt collector nearly every day and you’re at your wits’ end. So what can you do? Here are eight suggestions for what to do when you can’t get a conventional loan.
Look for a bad credit loan
There are companies that specialize in loaning money to people who have bad credit. You can find them by going online and searching on the term “bad credit loans.” In fact, there is even a website the www.badcreditloans.com as well as www.247lendinggroup.com. Other sites with loans for people with bad credit include Springleaf Financial and Avant Credit. Be forewarned that most of these sites won’t loan more than $5,000 and their loans usually come with very high interest rates.
Try for a peer-to-peer loan
Peer-to-peer lending is where you borrow money directly from a person or group of people with no third-party financial institution involved. The number one site for this type of lending is www.lendingclub.com, which offers unsecured (personal) loans up to $35,000. Another popular peer-to-peer lender is www.prosper.com. If you have poor credit, you may not be able to get a peer-to-peer loan but it would certainly be worth trying.
Get a payday loan
If you’re short only a few hundred dollars and have steady employment, you could get a payday loan. This is where you write a check to the lender for the amount you need, plus its fee and get cash in return. The payday lender will then cash the check on your next payday – hence the term payday loan. This means you will need to have enough money in your checking account to cover that check or your loan will be automatically rolled over and you will be charged another fee.
Tap friends or family members
This isn’t a very popular option because it’s difficult to go to a family member or friend and basically beg for money. However, it is definitely a way to get a loan when you have bad credit. If you go this route just make sure that you treat the loan just as if it was a bank loan. Write out a contract spelling out how you will repay the money and the interest rate you will pay – because you actually do need to pay interest on that money. The good part of this is that you certainly won’t have to pay as much interest as if you had a bad credit loan. And do make sure that you pay back the money as you had agreed to and on time.
Pawn something
Again if you only need $500 or less you might be able to pawn something. The advantages to this are that you get the money immediately and that you could get the asset back by paying off the “loan” – usually within 30 days.
Look for a second job
Could you take on additional shifts where you now work? If not, you should be able to get a part-time job. The food service and hospitality industries are almost always looking for people who would be willing to work 15 or 20 hours a week. These types of jobs rarely pay much more than $8 or $10 an hour but if you use all the money you earn to pay off your debts you could be debt free in maybe two years or less.
Try to settle your debts
If you’re nearly six months behind in your payments, you could contact your lenders and attempt to settle your debts for less than you owe. To do this means contacting each of them individually and making a settlement offer for 40% or 50% of what you owe. In many cases you will be able to negotiate a favorable settlement because the lender would rather get “half a loaf” then see you declare bankruptcy where it would get nothing. You have to be a reasonably good negotiator to pull this off. Your lenders will want immediate payment so you also need to have the cash in hand to pay for your settlements.
Hire a professional debt settlement company
Most people choose to hire a debt settlement company instead of attempting to negotiate settlements themselves. There are two important reasons for this. First, a debt settlement company like National Debt Relief has skilled and experienced counselors that are almost always able to negotiate better settlements than you would be able to do yourself. And second, this removes the need to have the cash available to pay for your settlements. What would happen instead is that the debt settlement company would settle your debts and you would then have a monthly payment plan that should have you debt free in two to four years.
Start rebuilding your credit
Whichever of these options you choose, it’s important that you also start rebuilding your credit. One way to do this is by getting a debit card tied to your checking or savings account. If you use the card sensibly this will be reported to the three credit bureaus and will eventually have a positive effect on your credit score. If you elect to get one of these cards just make sure that how you use is reported to the credit bureaus.
You can do other things to improve your credit as revealed in this video.