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What can I use a personal loan for?

Nick Bendel avatar
Nick Bendel
- 3 min read
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Depending on the lender and your financial situation, you might be able to borrow up to $100,000 with a personal loan. But what could you use it for?

One way you could use a personal loan would be to consolidate debt. Here’s how a debt consolidation works:

  • Problem – you have two or more debts that have high interest rates
  • Solution – you take out a personal loan, at a lower interest rate, to pay off those debts
  • Result – you’re left with just one debt and a lower interest rate

For example, imagine you had the following debts:

  • Credit card #1 – debt $10,000, interest rate 19.99 per cent
  • Credit card #2 – debt $6,000, interest rate 18.50 per cent
  • Car loan – debt $13,000, interest rate 9.75 per cent

Now imagine you took out a $29,000 personal loan ($10,000 + $6,000 + $13,000), at 6.99 per cent, to pay off those three loans. You’d still owe the same amount of money, but now your interest repayments would be reduced and you’d have just one loan to manage

10 ways to use a personal loan

  1. Debt consolidation
  2. Car
  3. Boat
  4. Wedding
  5. Holiday
  6. School fees
  7. Medical bills
  8. Moving
  9. Renovating
  10. Fitting out the home

Other ways to use a personal loan

Personal loans are often used to pay for major expenses like:

  • Weddings
  • Holidays
  • School fees
  • Medical bills

You could also use a personal loan to pay for home-related expenses:

  • Moving
  • Renovating
  • White goods, electrical goods, furniture

Some lenders will let you use a personal loan to buy a car or a boat – although others will make you use a car loan instead.

The key features of a personal loan

If you’ve decided to take out a personal loan, there are a few more questions to answer.

What loan size do you want? As a general rule, lower is better, so you can get out of debt as quickly as possible.

How often would you like to make loan repayments? Weekly, fortnightly or monthly?

What loan term would you like? Generally, personal loans last from one to 10 years. A longer loan term means your regular repayments are lower, but your total interest bill over the life of the loan is higher.

You also need to decide on the type of loan. Secured or unsecured? Variable or fixed?

5 questions to ask before taking out a personal loan

  1. How much will I borrow?
  2. How often will I make repayments?
  3. How long will my loan be?
  4. Will my loan be secured or unsecured?
  5. Will my loan be variable or fixed?

Disclaimer

This article is over two years old, last updated on January 23, 2018. While RateCity makes best efforts to update every important article regularly, the information in this piece may not be as relevant as it once was. Alternatively, please consider checking recent personal loans articles.

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