A loan consolidation would hurt my debt plan

Lately loan applications have been flooding my mailbox. It was nice of the USPS carrier to bring two more offers today. One of these raised the possibility of a loan consolidation and the other was from one of those payday loan companies.

According to the letters, these folks are willing to lend me thousands if I'll just sign on the dotted line. The advertisements make one monthly payment sound good. I was forced into a student loan consolidation a couple of months ago. After looking at my debt it doesn't sense for me to reach for a consolidation on anything else.

Anytime something sounds too good to be true it usually is. The same adage can apply to a loan consolidation. These companies are in the business of making money and they do a good job. That is the only way that they can make these finance offers.

Here's why it's not a good idea for me right now.

The author's piggy bank.

Other than student loans and taxes we only have three pieces of debt that accrue interest. Two of these will be gone next month. We boosted our withholding to hopefully take care of the taxes. (I'll know in April.) In the meantime we've worked out manageable payments to the IRS. 

The rest of the debt is interest free medical bills.

It is tempting to roll the medicals into a loan consolidation but that would really cost us in the long run. It would mean having to pay interest on the debt that I'm trying to get out of. The loan consolidation payments would be based on rolling of medical bills together with credit card debt. 

Rolling non-interest bearing debt into a consolidation that would accrue interest doesn't make sense. Therefore I'll pass on these opportunities just as I did on a credit card offer a few months ago. 

Hopefully the USPS carrier will continue to bring the loan consolidation offers to my door. They're all going into the trash but the lending company offers do have one bright side. The mailings are helping provide jobs to the postal workers.