Tag: Credit Card Debt

Debt Consolidation Plans – Your Way Out of Debt



During an economic recession, the result of national and international disruptions in the flow of goods and services due to a decline in the value of money, the cost of living outstrips the rate of earning. These macroeconomic and micro-economic forces conspire to cause psychological suffering due to increasing virulent conditions breeding indebtedness. In addition, the credit score system also spikes, recording more negative items and damning more people to poor credit scores.

A serious plan of how to find your way out of debt has to take into account the type of financial instrument used to handle the situation.

One such plan that has proven favorable in both clearing outstanding debt, unsettled bills that have been accruing for some time and lowering credit scores, and in restoring credit has been that of the credit card debt consolidation loan program.

Debt Consolidation Plans

A debt consolidation plan is to use a loan issued by a debt relief lender for the specific purpose of consolidating all charge card payments under one umbrella. A loan of this type is offered at a low interest. It pays off, in full, all high interest loans due on charge account credits. The borrower is now left with only one loan to pay off, the consolidated loan. In effect, multiple loans are replaced by a single loan. In addition, this single loan is bereft of the burden of high interest and late penalty payments that have been making the charge loans almost impossible to pay off. Provided this loan is paid off incrementally, in a regular and in a timely manner, the consumer can hope to be completely freed of all credit arrays and begin a new financial future.

What Affect Does This Plan Have On Your Credit History?

Consolidating your charge card debts by getting a low-interest loan to pay off all your cards can only have a positive effect on credit history. For one thing, the amount owed to the open-end credit company is paid off in full according to the agreement. In other words, unlike a debt settlement, the payment is not a discounted version of the full payment. For another thing, once the charge card company is paid off, it has no more complaint against the debtor and has to file the loan as “paid in full.” In the unlikely event that a charge company neglects to update the records, the owner of the credit record can challenge the negative items and have it legally removed.


Answers to 5 Common Questions About Debt Consolidation

It happens to virtually everyone at some point in life. You find yourself over your head in debt. Perhaps you were laid off from your job or experienced a period of unemployment. Maybe you or someone in your family had a medical emergency and wiped out your savings. Or it could be that you have poor financial management skills and simply spent more than you could repay. Whatever the reason for your debt, the effect is the same: you most likely feel overwhelmed, hopeless, and endlessly worried. You don’t see a way out of the debt spiral and you don’t know where to turn. Perhaps you’ve heard about debt consolidation as a way of achieving debt relief, but you may not know much about it. Here, then, are answers to five common questions about debt consolidation.

1. What is debt consolidation? It’s easier to explain debt consolidation as it contrasts to the way you now manage your debt. Right now, most of the payments you make each month are probably going to pay down interest on credit cards and store cards. You may even be routinely paying exorbitant late fees, banking fees, and so forth. Before you know it, your money is gone but your debt isn’t. Essentially, debt consolidation serves to merge all of your various sources of debt into one single debt – and a single payment.

2. What are the Benefits of Debt Consolidation? There are several benefits to debt consolidation. Your multiple payments will be consolidated into a single monthly payment. In the process, the high interest charges you are paying can be reduced or eliminated, as can late charges and other fees. Best of all, your repayment plan allows you to find hope once again, and eventually enjoy the experience of debt-free living.

3. What Types of Debts Qualify for Consolidation? Many different types of debts qualify for consolidation, including credit card debt, store card debt, personal loan debt, utility bills, and so forth.

4. What if I Have Bad Credit? If you have bad credit, you’re not alone. Debt consolidation is available to people with poor credit histories. In fact, it’s designed to provide debt assistance to people with poor credit. Even if you have unpaid defaults, payment arrears, or have been rejected by a lender, you may still qualify for bad credit loans.

5. How Can I Begin the Process of Debt Consolidation? It’s actually very simple. You can begin by finding an online debt consolidation company that specializes in helping consumers with debt assistance or bad credit loans. After completing a confidential initial application, you will be contacted by a finance professional that will work with you to develop a reduced payment plan. He or she will also work with your creditors to reduce interest rates and eliminate penalties. The debt consultation should be free of charge. When you find yourself drowning in debt, it’s important to remember that there is hope. Many people have a difficult time facing their financial situations, and choose not to act. By opting for debt consolidation, you can make a plan, regain hope, and be well on your way to living debt-free.


Unsecured Debt Consolidation Loans

Unsecured debt consolidation loans are loans that individuals take out from a bank without placing any collateral for the loan. Such loans are availed to pay off credit card debt or medical bills. Normally, debt consolidation is undertaken to reduce and eliminate debt by paying off a high-interest unsecured loan, like credit card debt, with a low-interest secured loan like a home equity line of credit. Debt consolidation thus helps in lowering interest rates, which works in the long run to eliminate debt faster.

Unsecured debt consolidation loans are not secured by any collateral like a home or a car. These are mostly in the form of personal loans. Personal loans are one way of paying off credit card debt if one does not own a home or a car. Many banks offer such plans for their customers who have a satisfactory banking history with them. However, interest rates on unsecured personal loans would be higher than a secured home-equity line of credit.

Usually, the amounts disbursed as unsecured debt consolidation loans are lower than what would have been if the debt consolidation loan was secured. Wells Fargo Financial, for example, offers its customers home equity lines of credit for debt consolidation starting at $10,000, whereas unsecured personal loans for debt consolidation at capped at $10,000. So unsecured debt consolidation loans are essentially for those individuals who carry lower credit card debt, but still want to consolidate it and eliminate it completely.

While an unsecured debt consolidation loan is a good way to pay off high-interest credit card debt, very often individuals end up a few years later with a similar credit card debt and the added burden of paying off the personal loan. The critical element to debt reduction and elimination is to keep a check on one’s spending. There are secured and unsecured debt consolidation loans available to help one out of debt, but the process must start at the individual’s level.


How Not to Pay Your Credit Card Debt



Many people probably have considered a variety of options of how not to pay their credit card’s. In other words, they are looking for ways to get out of debt without paying their bills. If you are looking for ways how not to pay your debt that will get you out completely without damaging your credit, you are out of luck. There are no ways how not to pay your bill’s that leave you with decent credit if you do not wish to pay for any of the debt you owe. There are ways how not to pay your credit card debt if you are looking for a way to pay it off without damaging your credit and still make all your other obligations.

How Not To Pay Your Credit Card’s Without Extensive Credit Score Damage

If you are short on funds and are looking for ways to get around paying all your bills but just cannot seem to make ends meet to pay them all then there is a way you can get away without paying your credit card bills in favor of more important bills. This should only be done if absolutely necessary and for the shortest amount of time possible.

The first thing to do is to take care of your must pays. This includes things like rent, food, car, child support, and the things you have to have in order to live and work. If you have the option of paying the mortgage or rent or the credit card pay the must haves first. Credit card companies will usually wait 30 or more days before issuing collections or submitting your information to the credit reporting agencies as delinquent. While you may end up paying fees or higher interest rates, it can help you keep your home, car and take care of the things you have to have in order to live.

This should only be used as a way to buy time to get your financials in order and you should make a payment, the late and the current payment as soon as possible on your credit card in order to avoid collections action. These types of reordering will usually only create small notes on your credit if at all. This means that the damage is not as extensive as doing something drastic as a bankruptcy or charge off.


Is Getting Out of Debt Really All That Hard?



As of the moment we are in the midst of a pretty bad economic recession. People have been losing their jobs, businesses have been going under, and we are hitting record numbers with home foreclosures. To top all of this off we are seeing American consumers hit a record high with credit card debt. Now what most people do not know is that getting out of debt is not all that hard if you take the right steps.

For starters most people do not know what options they have available to them in order to get out of debt, however before going into any of those options debtors must be made aware that pretty much anything they do to get out of debt will have a negative credit effect. Unless the debtor has the money to pay off the debt in full, which ninety nine percent of people do not. The number one priority when trying to get out of debt should be exactly that, getting out of debt, not worrying about keeping a great credit score. A credit score is something that changes like the wind and can be repaired at a later date, and besides when you’re in debt you should not be worrying about how to get yourself into more debt in the future.

With that being said there are two main debt relief programs available to people trying to get out of debt. There is consumer credit counseling and there is debt settlement. Both have their respective pros and cons.

A credit counseling program is one that boasts the benefits of reducing interest and consolidating payments into just one. So instead of making numerous payments throughout the month to your creditors you just make one to the credit counseling agency and they will pay the creditors for you. Plus the creditors will lower the interest on these types of plans. The problem is that for many people the payments will still simply be too much. Often times the payments are just as much if not more than what people are putting out on monthly minimum payments.

With credit counseling people can look to get rid of their debt within 5-7 years and look to pay back around 135% of what they currently owe. Another issue with credit counseling is the low success rate, because if just one payment is missed often times the creditors will kick the consumer off of the program, thus bumping the interest back up. And yes there is a negative effect on the credit, a credit counseling plan will be shown as a code 7 on the credit report which looks bad. But the bottom line is to get out of debt and with this plan money and time will be saved when compared to riding out the monthly minimum payment scheme for what could be decades.

Now there is another debt relief plan called debt settlement. The benefits of this program are the savings of money and time. Most debtors find themselves saving around fifty percent of what they owe today, and can realistically get out of debt in just a few years. The downside to this program is that in order to achieve a debt settlement the consumer must let the accounts fall into default, thus putting the creditors in a position to negotiate a settlement. So obviously this will have a negative effect on the credit score. However once the settlements start coming in the credit score will rebound and repair itself naturally.

Right now with the state of the economy debt settlement has been a very lucrative debt relief method for many people. The creditors have been negotiating very low settlements, much lower than they do when the economy is doing better. Many people are finding they are saving a tremendous amount of money with this option and find themselves getting out of debt very quickly.

Like I said in the title, getting out of debt is not all that hard. The vast majority of people would be able to manage one of these two types of programs. The only thing that holds most people back is the apprehension of their credit score being affected. This is quite a shame that the creditors have so many people kneeling at the alter of FICO, that they do not realize they are losing thousands of dollars to the credit card companies with no end in sight. With the way things have been going in the economy people are going to need all the money they can get and throwing away money to high monthly minimum payments may be the straw that breaks the camels back for millions of American families and puts them into very precarious financial situations.


Copyright © 1996-2010 Get Out Of Debt. All rights reserved.
iDream theme by Templates Next | Powered by WordPress