What is a Debt Consolidation Loan?

Do you sit down at the end of the month only to stress about the shear number of bills you have? Are most of your bills in the form of credit card payments or other debt obligations? Are you noticing that your interest rates vary for each different debt.? Would you like to potentially save money? Would you benefit by having all of your debt on one single account and by having only one bill to pay? If you answered, yes, to any of these questions, then a debt consolidation loan might be for you. Find out exactly what a debt consolidation loan is in this article.A debt consolidation loan is a type of loan that takes all of your debt and consolidates it into a single loan. The main advantage is that you have only a single payment to make towards your debt each month. If you’ve had student loans and have consolidated them into a single consolidation loan, then you know the benefit already. However, there are a couple different types of consolidation loans that you need to consider. These are secured and unsecured consolidation loans.Secured consolidation loans are loans that you put up collateral for such as real estate. There are several advantages of a secured consolidation loan over an unsecured consolidation loan. The main advantages include having generally lower interest rates, lower monthly payments and overall better loan terms. The major disadvantage is that if you default on your loan, you will lose whatever you put up as collateral.The second type of debt consolidation loan is an unsecured loan that puts all of your debt into a single loan. While these generally have higher interest rates and less favorable loan terms than a secured loan, if you have no assets or are afraid of losing your real property, then the unsecured loan might be for you.Remember, taking out a debt consolidation loan should not be a used to overcome poor debt management skills. If you are having serious financial trouble because of your debt, then you need to seek professional debt counseling in order to find more long-term solutions such as learning how to manage your money and your credit. If you don’t learn to manage your credit and money and minimize your debt, a consolidation loan will not help you in the long run. In fact, a consolidation loan has the potential to make your debt situation worse if you are not practicing good management skills.