Debt Reduction Tactics And Home Finance Ideas

Debt Consolidation – Don't Hire an Agency; Do It Yourself

by Charles Essmeier

The average American household now has more than $9000 in credit card debt and the savings rate in this country is lower than at any time during the Great Depression. And a quick glance at all of the debt consolidation commercials on late night television will tell you the obvious – debt is a tremendous problem in our country today.

Listening to these ads makes it seem as though only the advertisers can help you get out of debt, as though they have some financial secrets that will allow your debts to magically disappear. Is that true? If you have a debt problem, do you need to hire one of these debt consolidation services? Is there another solution?

The short answer is "no." You do not have to hire a company to get you out of debt. In all likelihood, the company you would hire cannot do anything that you cannot do yourself. No one can make your debts disappear; the only way to make them go away is to either pay them off or file for bankruptcy.

So what do you do? For starters, pick up the phone and call your creditors. Explain your situation and tell them that you simply cannot make ends meet. You would be surprised at how often creditors are willing to work out some sort of payment plan with their debtors, especially if the debtor is behind on his or her payments. Their motivation Is simple – it is much easier to get some of their money back, under different terms, from a willing customer than it is to try to get payment by turning the debt over to a collection agency. It is also better than writing off the debt as a loss.
By working out an agreement with your creditors you can also avoid having some nasty notes put in your credit report. If you can fulfill your obligations, you can have your debt marked "paid as agreed", which is much better than having it shown as delinquent.

Of course, you can always hire a debt consolidation company to do the above for you. They can call the creditor in order to work out a repayment play for you. The only difference is that you will not only have to pay your creditor but you will also have to pay the debt consolidation company. Just remember that when those debt consolidation firms run ads on television, they are hoping to make money from you. If you have a debt problem, you would be much better off using that money to pay down your debt.

©Copyright 2006 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier is the owner of Retro Marketing, a firm devoted to informational Websites, including End-Your-Debt.com, a site devoted to establishing credit, debt consolidation and credit counseling.

Debt consolidation, debt management, credit counseling, bankruptcy, credit cards, home equity loan.

About the AuthorCharles Essmeier, More Details about debt consolidation here. Charles Essmeier is the owner of Retro Marketing. Retro Marketing, established in 1978, is a firm devoted to informational Websites on topics such as debt consolidation and credit counseling, home equity loans and lines of credit, and auto Lemon Laws .

posted by Bryon Zirker @ 2:32 PM 0 comments

Credit Card Debt in the United States

by Beth Derkowitz

It’s no secret that credit card debt in the United States
is at an all-time high. The U.S. is a culture of spending
rather than saving and with the increasing cost of living
and the low minimum wage; it seems that no one is
invulnerable to credit card debt.
Credit cards are not meant to cause financial trouble, but
rather a more convenient way of paying off larger items and
for emergencies, but many people have turned to the longer
payment terms as a way to get the finer things in life.
Many consumers forget that credit cards are essentially
loans that need to be repaid, as opposed to being ‘free’
money.

What happens is that a consumer will charge items on the card
and then receive a bill in the mail. When they decide to make
a minimum payment, interest accrues and the next month has a
larger balance, even if they don’t pay anything more. But the
trouble lies in the fact that people continue to buy more and
more. As interest accrues, the minimum payment goes up. And
that’s when trouble starts.

If the cardholder is living beyond their means by using a credit
card, they can not pay off the interest rates as well as the
balance as quickly as they think that they will and the credit
card companies benefit. For example, an eleven dollar grocery
store bill on a credit card can take a year to pay off and end
up costing about fifty dollars when it’s finally paid off.
That’s an expensive way to eat.

And because so many people in the U.S. can not pay off their
credit card bills, their minimum payments get too high for
them to handle, so they turn to bankruptcy. In effect,
declaring bankruptcy used to mean a cancellation of your debts
and a way to start over, but it also negated your credit history
and made it harder to get loans in the future to rebuild the
financial history.

But then the bankruptcy laws changed and cardholders are now
being told to pay off parts of their debt instead of getting
that clean slate and fresh start.

The credit card debt in the United States is a recipe for
financial disaster. Because so much of the economy relies
on the purchase power of consumers, eventually the increase
in debt will lead to less ability to pay overall and a crash
in the system. With better credit counseling programs and a
system to teach people how to manage their finances, the
U.S. can dig itself out of this mess.


Beth Derkowitz recommends Find Credit Cards for finding a
MasterCard rewards credit card that’s right for you.


Keywords: MasterCard, credit card

About the Author
Beth Derkowitz, rajasthan
bethderkowitz@gmail.com
http://www.findcreditcards.org/issuer/mastercard.php here.
Beth Derkowitz recommends Find Credit Cards for finding a
free prepaid debit card.

posted by Bryon Zirker @ 1:30 PM 0 comments