I Make A Pretty Good Amount Of Money ($67,086), But I Have Bad Credit And Need To Consolidate Some Bills. - Help.com

just pour as much money as you can into your debts, if you cant get a loan, you cant get a loan. try and pay them off as fast as you can, starting with the highest interest one first.
if you have credit cards, try loading all the debt onto one or two cards and paying them off, that will lower the interest you are paying, and talk to the bank about interest free options.

You know you can really surprise yourself when you sit down with all your bills and see exactly where your money is going. There are often many things you don’t realize you are spending a lot on.

What credit counsellors typically do is put you on a cash-only spending system until you develop good habits. This means you absolutely must set up a spreadsheet budget (use Excel or the free openoffice.org suite at the website of the same name) Then you use only cash and cheques to pay those expenses. You don’t take more out and you don’t use credit.

Going through this you will see a lot of expenses that are luxuries. Until you pay off your debts, you avoid all luxuries. ie. no eating out. No coffee out. no new clothes. no toys, gadgets, books, music. no gifts. You focus on getting your enjoyment out of what you have and from libraries, the Internet, etc. This is only temporary BUT it will help you “reset” your spending habits in the longrun and learn how to enjoy what you have VS enjoying spending money.

I’ve never been in trouble, but I got such a thrill out of paying off my student loans and car loans many years ago. When I realized how much the interest was, I just focused on putting every extra dollar towards them and got them paid off in record time.

A credit counsellor will say this:

You got into the hole slowly and surely with bad habits.

You get out of the hole sloely and surely with good habits.

Chasing quick-fixes is the reason you got into so much debt… you couldn’t wait to afford what you wanted.

get your credit report, fix your credit (easier than people think), spend a few months doing this (get rid of any collections, etc.(request they delete for payment); pay off outstanding bills (anything with a late charge); make sure all of your information is correct and up to date (dispute all of those old addresses and anything not EXACTLY correct); wait 4-6 months and get your loan. If you want to verify this, talk to the loan department at you desirably banking establishment, they will say the same. I am doing this, in 2 months my score is up from 470 to 563 (that is just from getting rid of the delinquincies, getting my cards paid down (averaging about 10% balance), and getting rid of a couple of collections (still have 3 on there which are killing me). and when you get your loan get it for more than you need, pay the extra back into the loan, that way you are not at or near a 100% balance for a year and a half.