The first thing you need to do is take stock of your credit situation as a whole. As painful as this may be, it will allow you to get a realistic picture of what lies ahead.

You should calculate how much you owe on each debt, how much interest you’re paying on each debt, your debt total and the timeframe you’ve been given to honour each debt. Don’t forget to include any fees and charges you are also currently paying.

Before you sign up for anything, make sure you do your homework. It can be worth your while taking the time to talk to an expert from an organisation with a history of responsible lending practices, like Greater Bank.

If the idea behind consolidating is to make your repayment process easier, cheaper and more convenient, speaking to us is the way to go. As we have no shareholders, we’re able to invest our profits into providing better value rates, lower fees and helpful product features designed to help you become debt-free sooner.

Now that you’ve simplified your debt landscape and are only making one repayment, with one interest rate, all you have to do is stay on track. The key to this is setting up and sticking to a budget.

Once you’ve configured your finances so that you can support your consolidated debts, the hard part is over.