Well, if it's a secured loan (meaning if you miss enough payments, someone will come and take your house/car/children away), then that's a pretty terrible idea.

It's a bad idea if you continue to incur more credit card debt.

Fortunately, I don't think it would be secured. It wouldn't be for a ton of money (say less than $6K), but would allow me to make one much lower interest payment than individual high interest payments to each card.

Also, I would either cancel all of my credit cards (though this apparently lowers my credit) or at the very least never use them again.

How would the principal payments work? Be careful that you can make both the monthly interest and principal payments in a timely fashion. If there's a risk that you'll have cash-tight months, it might be worth the extra interest expense to have the flexibility to make a smaller minimum payment.

It depends. The best way to pay down credit card debt is to transfer the balance onto a new card that offers 0% for a fixed period, and then transfer it on to another card again after that. (This kind of thing is common in the UK, and it's how I was able to pay off the debt I took on when my husband and I split up.)

But credit card companies (in the UK anyway) are wising up to this because they're not making any money out of customers who don't buy things at high interest rates. It's also getting more difficult to do now because so many of the credit card companies in the UK are owned by the same four or five banks, and they won't let you take out another card if you already have one through that bank.

Usually a personal loan at a rate of, say, 8%, will probe to be a much better bet than paying off a credit card at 19%. But don't make it a secured loan against your home. Ever.

But the key is to cut up the card and not use it again. Ever. For anything. Keep one card only, frozen in a block of ice in your freezer, for emergencies, and that means absolute dire emergencies such as the need to buy a plane ticket at short notice to get to a family member's deathbed.

If you are certain you can be disciplined about not using the credit cards, sure. Do you need great credit right now? Close all but 2 cards. Paying off the debt will lift your score. Any damage from closing accounts should be temporary.

Personally, I ignore my credit rating. It's become this huge sword hanging over our heads. People pay bills that are bogus rather than ding their credit. People use credit score to make way too many decisions. I say 'Screw 'em.' Of course, I have enough home equity that the bank is fond of me, so I can afford to. sorry. sometimes I just have to rant.

People use credit score to make way too many decisions.

I agree! You should only worry about your credit score when you need it- if you're buying a house or a car or whatever. Other than that, I make the decisions for me- I closed some cards earlier this year, because the company issuing them was hella shady and I didn't want them to even be able to count my names on their rolls.

I do like to get my (free) credit reports a couple times a year just to check that they have my info right. When I first started doing that I found that there were cards/accounts on there I thought I had closed long ago that were still considered 'active' by the company,

Just off the top of my head, it makes more sense to borrow money as cheaply as possible. A bank loan is almost certainly a cheaper form of debt than credit cards, which are definitely the most expensive money you can borrow.

I am currently playing the swap-0%-offers game, but you have to really stay on top of it. There are a few pitfalls to look out for.

They have different term lengths where 0% applies - 3 months, 6 months, a year - and then it can jump up between one statement and the next to an APR higher than you have now. So you have to stay one or two months ahead of the switcheroo, and do research to keep finding offers at the times you need them.

If you pay late, even a day late, they can change the APR to whatever the agreement says.

When you switch to a new offer, you need to follow your own trail to be sure you've closed accounts after you've transferred and zero'ed them out.

Also, finally, some of the deals offer 0% APR but charge a one-time percentage of the balance transfer you are loading onto the new card, so it's not totally free to do - there is usually some cost assessed.

If you're not the kind of person who wants to read all your statements closely each month and track the 0% expirations in a calendar, an unsecured loan could be an excellent way to go. You'll pay interest, but you'll have one bill and you won't need to keep setting up new accounts and closing old ones.