Consolidate debt

To consolidate debt or not to consolidate debt, that is truly the question, if you will forgive the Shakespearean reference! When you are in debt up to your ears, when your creditors are hounding you day and night, and when you feel like your very life’s blood is being wrung out of you in effort to squeeze more money out of you, sometimes the only option you have open to you is to consolidate your debts and loans.

However, if you truly are in up to your ears in problems because of your never ending debt problems, then the very last thing that you want to do is to rush in and consolidate your debts without having a clue as to what it means to consolidate debt.

And although it is quite simple really, and takes only a little bit of your time to find out how to consolidate debt, and about the firms that will consolidate debt, some people give in to the pressures surrounding them and make one bad decision after another regarding their debt problems. It is to stop this that you need to take a deep breath, sit back and look at your problems head on. If you have gotten to the point where you are thinking whether or not to consolidate debt, then you need take a good hard look at what you are facing.

For instance, if your monthly payments are too high, or you have too many creditors to pay off monthly, you might want to think about consolidating your debts into one, but then you will also have to look at the flip side of this particular coin as well.

If you rush into things, without looking to see what you are getting yourself into, you could find yourself in a lot more trouble than you bargained for, on the other hand, if you do your homework well and you know exactly what you are doing, you could find that you are better off than before you thought to consolidate debt and loan problems.

So, make sure that you don’t finally end up with a higher interest loan from the debt consolidation companies than you need, and make sure that you don’t get a secured loan from them to cover your unsecured loans. And when you are looking at getting out of debt and if you are still thinking about whether to consolidate debt or not, make a point of investigating all of your options first, this way you won’t be caught unawares after you have made a crucial decision.

By: Ruel Hinaloc

Most Americans have a problem with debt; the fact that the average household owes nearly $10,000 on their credit cards makes that pretty clear. And with interest rates and minimum credit card payments rising, consumers are finding their bills harder to pay each month. In years past, those who cannot repay their bills would often resort to filing for bankruptcy.

But last year’s Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act makes filing for bankruptcy more difficult and expensive than ever. What is someone with a debt problem to do? Credit counseling? Debt consolidation? Something else?

According to a new company that has been issuing press releases, the consumer can simply walk away from his or her debt. That’s right, just walk away without repaying. The details are vague, of course, and won’t be spelled out until you actually pay them for their services. But the company, which shall remain nameless, states that U.S. banking laws actually prohibit the lending of money at interest and that “several U.S. Supreme Court decisions” have backed this up. So, they claim, you don’t have to repay because your creditors were not legally permitted to issue credit to you in the first place!

For a fee, of course, this company will advise you as to how you can walk away from your debts without having to repay a penny. Even more incredibly, they also promise that doing so will not negatively affect your credit report.

The Supreme Court has probably had plenty to say about credit and lending over the years, but they almost certainly have not said that consumers have the right to elect not to pay their bills, which are subject to a legal contract to which the debtor has agreed. And the credit bureaus will certainly treat failure to pay in this scheme just like any other occasion when someone doesn’t pay – they will mark it as a delinquency on the debtor’s credit report.

If it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is, and that certainly applies here. There is no “legal secret” that will allow a debtor to simply walk away from debt unscathed. And if you do have a debt problem, the last thing you need to do with your money is to give it to someone who will give you bad advice.

By: Charles Essmeier