Your budget is the best tool to do what if scenarios. Then you can truly see the effect of transferring that debt to an equity line. Use your budget to calculate your payments if you moved some of the credit cards or all of the. Pick the best case to use, in other words the one that makes the most sense in your financial condition.



Unless you have huge amounts of untapped equity, market conditions may make it hard to get an equity loan right now. Borrowing guidelines are much more stringent and look to stay that way for some time. If you are deeply in debt you may not be able to use this technique.

Don't risk losing your home if you are already struggling with your mortgage. It's not worth losing your home. In the current market to get a federally backed mortgage after foreclosure is about five years. That's a long time to rent. If it's cheaper overall, lowers your total payments and makes sense to you then go for it.

If it looks like you would continue to struggle even after the switch too your equity line then you should not do it. Its time to look at other options that can help you reduce your debt. Even if you can't make big changes a lot of little changes will have the same effect over time.

Use that budget to see where you could make some cuts and save some money. You'd be surprised over a period of time how these could add up. Then take that extra savings and start applying it to pay off the balances of your most expensive cards. Your new financial attitude will make this easier.

Overall using your equity to help reduce your debt is a great step. You just must make sure it will work for you. The last thing you want is to be driven deeper into debt or foreclosure.