Decisions, Decisions

I contacted the credit counseling service through my credit union and found out that they will take all of our credit cards and lower their rates. Our US Bank cards will go to 0% interest, our Chase Cards will go to 2% interest and our Care Credit card will go to 15% interest. Then they will take $237 from us and pay the cards which they say will pay them off in 5 year. Of course we can pay more to pay it off faster if we want. Right now we pay about $370 in separate credit card payments. So it's a decent offer, but we would have to cancel all of our credit cards which will effect our credit scores negatively. Your credit score is better when you have some revolving accounts and gets better the more available credit you have on those account. Of course we'd still have the car loans on our credit getting good marks, but it will drop our scores a little bit. It obviously wouldn't be as bad as a bankruptcy or as bad as doing a debt settlement on my own. That's where you call your credit cards yourself and negotiate a payoff amount that is lower than what you owe. If you have $1000 on a credit card you can offer them $300, they'll say no, so you go up to $$400 and so on until they accept your offer. I read they usually accept as low as 40%. But they will put on your credit report that you did a settlement and the card will be canceled which will hurt your score more. So, I think we'll do it, but it's just one of those things that hard to commit to. But I need to do it soon.