John W
Favorite Answer
None of them. They all charge outrageous amounts and then leave you to do it yourself. You'll be better off buying a book from Amazon to guide out of debt.
Really, the biggest problem you'll have is acting rationally, you're in a state where you just want all the problems to just go away. You already know what needs to be done but you're paralyzed. What you need to do is find someone to talk to, preferably someone who's trained to listen and be non-judgmental like a therapist, priest or pastor. Anyone without the training will be apt to try to brainstorm some solutions which feed into your desire for someone to lift the problems off your back but all that means is that you would be following a course of action proposed by someone without as much information as you have and hence likely to be the wrong course of action. You need someone who will listen so that you can work the issues out and build the courage to do what you need to do and sadly, friends and family are not the ones trained to do so.
?
Yeah we favour doing your own debt management plan. Doing this puts you in control of how and when your creditors are paid. Some creditors may reply back and say that they will only deal with recognised debt management companies but if you push they'll end up working with you. They have to as they only way that the creditors will get back their money is either by
1. Debt consolidation - you paying it off by obtaining a loan; or
2. Debt management - which you are proposing.
If they don't accept this then your options are very limited. The thing is that your creditors don't want you to go down the bankruptcy route if it can be avoided as they'll not receive much back. So it is highly, likely if done correctly, that they'll accept your debt management proposal.
How do you do your debt management plan?
Well first off you write to all your creditors asking for the current outstanding balance. Once you have received this you then calculate what your disposable income is. This is calculated by subtracting essential outgoings eg council tax,food,clothing etc from your net monthly income. Then you split the disposable income so that each creditor will receive a fair share of the spare money, sometimes referred to as a pro rata split. Once you've done this you need to send off to each of the creditors evidence in the form of bank statements etc of how you calculated your disposable income. Hopefully your creditors will accept your proposal. Remember to ask if your interest can be frozen or at the very least fixed.
Remember debt management is really only a short term solution to get you through a problem period.
Go with the flow
There are some outright scam companies out there.
This is how most work:
They take your money for 6 months. (sometimes thousands).
They allow your bills to go unpaid.
This is to make the creditors nervous and settle.
This rarely works and you end up in court with your wages and assets being garnished anyway.
Companies don't have to settle, and they hate dealing with negotiation companies.
In the meantime, unpaid bills ruin your credit with late fees and higher interest rates.
They are there to line their pockets with your money and don't have your well-being in mind.
You can do this yourself:
Get a book on Credit and Debt repair from your library or bookstore.
These books are amazing.
They teach you how to negotiate, settle, reduce payments, even do the pay on delete on some items.
It will make you a PRO at dealing with your debt - all the secrets are in these books.
There is also an organization (non-profit) that will help you with this at no cost.
National Foundation for Credit Councelling
NFCC.org - they will help you with credit card debt - not student loans or mortgages.
There is not cost for help. If they put you on a DMP program the cost would be about $25 to $40 a month.
But only if you can afford it.
Reviews call them agels from above.
But again, all they do is what is in the books...
Jared D
Most of it, you can do yourself, however, I would call each of the lenders up and tell them you are on a budget, and only have so much to pay. First pay your house, electricity, food, and water, cut the rest, and get to work on the smallest debt and work your way to the biggest debt, paying the minimum on all others. I recommend listening to dave ramsey, go to his site, www.daveramsey.com and look up what he has to say on settling/paying debts.
Toni is very right, most debt managements are big scams, there is no magic formula to wipe out your debt, besides elbow grease, slinging newspapers, and delivering pizzas. Good luck, I have been where you are, and I hated, hated, hated every bit of it, but it has given me the fortitude to stay out of debt since then, and working my way to never borrow another penny again. I'm going to be debt free!
Anonymous
do you desire to regulate your charges or do you desire to do away with your charges? For debt administration plans with low expenses, around 50 greenbacks a month or so according to what state you reside in, you are able to attempt Care One credit Counseling. To do away with your mastercard debt, you will possibly be able to desire to attempt handmade debt settlement. this way you stay away from debt settlement employer expenses. sturdy success to you.