Step 1: Understand Your Credit Score The first step toward getting a personal loan or a consolidation loan is to understand your financial standing. Step 2: Shop Around for a Debt Consolidation Loan If you have a poor credit score, you might be inclined to take the first loan offered to you. However, you may have multiple options for lenders to work with, so be sure to shop around for a good interest rate and term.
Step 3: Consider a Secured Loan Most personal loans used for debt consolidation are unsecured loans. This means that they do not require collateral. Step 4: Improve Your Credit Score Finally, if you can’t get a loan right away, you may want to take some time to evaluate your credit score and see where your areas of opportunity lie. If you have small glitches on your score that caused it to decrease significantly, then you might be able to raise your score quickly.