Thinking about using a debt consolidation loan to get rid of high interest debt? Don’t just jump into it, do it the right way. Here are some tips for selecting the right amount and price.

Examine Your Budget

If you haven’t already created a budget, now is the time. List every monthly expense you have. Here is the example Prosper provides:
          Monthly expenses: $ (Fill in Total)
          Housing: $
          Insurance: $
          Car expenses: $
          Utilities: $
          Phone, cable, internet: $
          Food, entertainment: $
          Clothing, household expenses $
          Credit cards and other loans: $
          Other expenses: $

If you leave something blank here, be sure to explain. For example, no rent because you live with your parents. Cool, make sure to mention that. You might want to include 2 lists or total monthly expense figures: 1) current monthly expenses and 2) total monthly expenses with your prosper loan. This can be especially useful if this loan will decrease your monthly expense load.

Be conservative here, everybody slips sometimes. You don’t want to deceive potential lenders, but more importantly you want to be honest with yourself. Missing payments on a Prosper loan will ding your credit score just like any other loan. Don’t risk it.

List Debt Obligations with Interest Rates

Not only are the lender interested in these figures, but these numbers are very important to you as a borrower. Here’s my list when I applied for a loan:

As you can see, some obligations are more pressing than others. These 22-30% APR accounts were killing me. I just couldn’t get ahead. By the way, this is a great time for you to call your credit card companies. Many are willing to lower your rates if you have a good payment history. Those that won’t? They become the target for your consolidation loan.

Determine a Cut Off Line

I decided to attack the accounts above 20% (shaded in table above). That is 7 out of the my 10 accounts with balances totaling more than $7000. I found a 0% balance transfer for $2000 and requested a $5000 loan from Prosper at 19%. Consolidating these debts would not only reduce my monthly finance charge, but would also help me improve my credit score by reducing the number of accounts carrying balances.

Why not consolidate all of my debt into one payment? Several reasons:

1. Lower amounts fund quickly. You are more likely to get funded if you request a small amount. It will take fewer lenders to fully fund a small loan. Also, its going to seem less risky for them. They want to see a monthly payment that you can definitely handle. Plus you’ll have a lower DTI, that helps too.
2. More likely to get funded at a higher rate. If you’re credit is less than perfect, you can not expect a low rate. By selecting only your highest interest debts for this loan, you can reasonably ask for a rate that will save you money.
3. Gain leverage with the credit card companies. As soon as my balances were paid in full, Chase and Discover began to see the light. Credit limit increases and great balance transfer deals started flying my way in no time. APRs were dropping like flies. For example, Chase offered me a fixed 5.99% balance transfer with no fee. That is a great deal. I was able to use that on my next highest interest credit card account for additional savings. I would have lost the opportunity to take advantage of that if I had consolidated all of my debts at once. You might also want to stay on the lookout for 0% transfers for some of your remaining balances. No loan on Prosper will ever beat that deal!

Determine a Good Rate

This rate should be lower than the average APR of the debts you’re consolidating and close to the average APR for loans with your credit grade. Prosper will suggest a rate. Depending on your stats, you might want to go with that rate. If you have a steady income, low DTI, less than 2 inquiries in the last 6 months, and a well-written listing you might be able to go with a couple points lower than the average. Remember, if you’re loan is funded, there’s a great chance that people will bid below this rate. My listing started at 19% and ended below 15%. Choose a number higher than you hope for to make the loan more attractive — but don’t go higher than the average APR of the loans you’re consolidating.

Most importantly, take time filling out a detailed and honest listing. This loan could help you out tremendously, it’s definitely worth the time. Good luck consolidating your debts! I hope that you find my experience helpful.

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Me vs Debt in an excellent personal finance blog written by a sucessfule Prosper borrower.

2 Weekend Guest Posts from Prosper Members…

Prosper vs. My Credit Card (hint: Prosper Wins) by MommyOf2

Back in early 2007, I went on a little spending spree for by new baby son since I have a mild obsession with baby clothes (OK, maybe it’s a little more than mild). Needless to say, I ran up a nice little tab of about $1,500 on my credit cards in a few short weeks (a woman has the right to nest a little, eh?). I found Prosper through a friend and joined a group on Prosper (www.P2P-Loans.com), which gave me an alternative to simply paying the monthly minimum on my credit card. The credit card company was charging me about 15% and the minimum payments barely made a dent in what I owed. Prosper gave me a great alternative and P2P-Loans.com and my group leader, who I know personally, helped a ton by backing my loan with a large bid and an endorsement. I closed my $1,500 loan with Prosper at a LOW LOW 7.0%, which saved me a ton of money and allowed me to pay this bill off in a short 8-9 months as opposed to many years with the credit card. Thank you Prosper and thank you to my group, which was a big reason that I got such a great rate!

Excited to Help! by prestige727

I had not known about peer to peer lending until December 2007. We were visiting family over the holidays and in the hotel we were staying, the USA Today newspaper was provided at your door every morning. I am a real estate investor and my husband and I own a small used car lot. Things started slowing down around July for the car lot but the houses were still doing O.K. In November, both came to a stall. I had just asked my husband what should our next venture should be. I believe it was on the December 27th that I read the article about peer to peer lending. I was very interested. Although the article mentioned more than one company that was doing this, Prosper.com was the name that stuck in my head. From that day on I consistently monitored the website, reading requests for loans. After about 2 weeks I decided to try it. I transfered $500.00 from my bank account and started bidding. I lost a few bids in the beginning but was happy for the people who had received the loan. Just this week I won my first bid, a young man who needed to purchase a car to get back and forth to college and work. I was so happy. It was at that moment I realized that I was more eager to help someone than I was to win a bid. I have about $100.00 left in my account. My plan is to transfer at least another $1500.00 by the end of the month. Now I know they’re a lot of good people just bad situations. Thanks Prosper.com for thinking of people who really do need a second, third and even fourth chance to prove themselves.

I’m a responsible, hard-working college graduate trying to get out of debt. I’ve diligently paid the credit card companies minimum payments (or more) every month for the last 5 years. In return they slapped me with higher rates as soon as my balances grew. When I inquired about the 230% increase in my APR, I was ignored and treated with disrespect. Prosper lenders gave me an opportunity to redeem myself. They looked beyond my credit score and saw my potential to be a responsible borrower. Not only did I cut my highest interest rate debt in half, but I gained leverage with the rest of my creditors. After a couple months of $0 balances, my high interest credit card companies reduced my standard APRs. All of the sudden they had great balance transfer deals to bring to the table. This is more progress in 6 months than I was able to make in the past 3 years with phone calls and letters.

I’m almost 6 months into my Prosper Loan and I’ve been able to reduce my total finance charges from over $300 per month to under $100. This has freed up funds to “snowball” into my next highest rate balance. I expect to be completely out of debt by the end of 2008. None of this would have been possible without the help of Prosper Lenders!

Interested in hearing more? I post details about my experience with Prosper on my blog at http://mevsdebt.blogspot.com regularly. Stop by and check it out!

2 Evening Guest Posts by Prosper Members…

Faith in Fellow Humans?

By Kesselschlacht

I came to Prosper after reading an article about this strange concept of borrowing from and lending to people … not banks. After a little more research I decided to jump into it feet first with a whopping $50.00 to be lent to anyone who needed it. Well, anyone with an “A” or better rating.

Then, I read the story of a “B” borrower that struck home - sounds like me many years ago. I remembered that I needed just a little help and got it… it changed my life and made my belief in the human spirit stronger.

Today I am still lending on Prosper - sometimes only $50.00 and sometimes a little more - but I am still here.  So are the many borrowers and lenders who count on Prosper to continue to “prosper.”

I watch many borrowers who consistently pay on time - my thanks to them. I am also watching my first borrower whose loan is now in collections - and wonder what happened to this “AA” borrower.  Life plays tricks on us sometimes, but it is up to us to make life what we want it to be.

In any case - I will stick with this plan as long as I find it of value to me and the many others counting on the combined community. Thank you Prosper for letting me become a part of this great family. In a way this is my limited approach of giving just a little bit back to my brothers and sisters out there.

My Thoughts On Prosper

By Tom

I think Prosper is such a great way for people that are stuck with the Pay Day loans to get help and stop the cycle they are caught in! Even those high Interest credit cards can be worked down by a Prosper loan if the borrower is careful NOT to run the credit cards back up. The important thing for the lenders to do IS cut the cards up once they pay off the cards with their new loan BUT don’t close the account! By having used credit that will help your credit score! UNUSED credit is a very good thing to have. I have started a group that will be open to everyone once Prosper allows it and I hope my first loans are good ones. Well good luck to all here!

Many of you may have already done your research on tips to get your listings funded by reading the help pages or visiting the Prosper forums. There are many tips that have been reiterated time and time again - such as getting endorsements or joining a group. I hope to give you some tips from a slightly different angle, backed up by some interesting statistics.

At the time you begin writing up your listing, there will be many factors that are set in stone such public records, delinquencies, DTI ratio, and so on. They will play a huge part in whether your listing gets funded or not, but there are still some not-so-obvious factors that you can take advantage of to get your listing funded.

Timing of When the Listing Ends 

Bidders are most active on Wednesdays and Thursdays between the times of 2pm – 8pm PST. If your listing ends during this period, it will receive maximum exposure by ranking higher in the listings. By default, the listings under the Bid On Loans tab are sorted by the amount of time left before a listing expires. The less time that is left, the higher your listing will rank and the more bidding activity it will receive.

The More Description, the Better

The Description part of the listing is very important for borrowers and becomes increasingly important as your credit grade lowers. You should take this opportunity to explain, in as much detail as you can, the purpose of the loan and how you plan to pay it back. Even more importantly, take this as an opportunity to explain some of the negative aspects of your credit history. Be honest and it will pay, literally. In general, funded listings contain about 36.4% more content as compared to non-funded listings. Statistically speaking, the lower the credit grade, the beefier the description will have to be in order to maximize the chance of the listing being funded.

Duration of the Listing 

One would naturally think that if a listing is active for longer on Prosper, it will receive more bids. This is not necessarily true, as many lenders begin bidding when a listing is about to end. There is no reason for the lender to tie up his or her money on a listing that still has 10 days left when there is another similar listing that is about to end. The money would otherwise be in Limbo for 10 days doing nothing instead of earning interest. A shorter duration for the listing benefits the borrower as well since he or she will be receiving the money earlier.

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Allen Liu writes the blog Easy Prosper Tips