The process of debt consolidation can make your life easier and can even help improve your credit score.

Consolidating debt involves combining multiple sources of debt into one loan or onto one balance transfer credit card. This enables you to focus your debt repayment efforts on a single payment with one monthly due date. If you make payments on that new loan or credit card on time, you can also give your credit score a boost.

There are a handful of different ways you can consolidate debt:

Debt consolidation can help you improve your credit score in a few ways, including: 

Debt consolidation can potentially harm your credit score due to the following:

Consolidating debt can be a good choice if you’re struggling with high-interest rates and multiple payments with different due dates. It can help streamline the debt repayment process. 

However, consolidating debt doesn’t always make sense. For example, if your debt is already manageable and you’re able to make your payments on time, you may not need to consolidate and add an unnecessary hard inquiry to your credit report. And if you don’t have a good credit score, you may struggle to qualify for a personal loan with a low-interest rate or a 0% APR balance transfer card.

If you don’t think debt consolidation is the right move for you, these are some other options available to you: