Archive for February, 2010
What is the best solution for credit card debt?
I am way in over my head, I have 6 credit cards and I’m over $40,000 in debt. I have tried to take out a loan at the bank to consolidate but i got turned down. I need HELP!
You have heard it before. Pay minimum on all your cards. Take the smallest amount you ouh on one and double or triple the payment. When it is payed off cancel that credit card. Then take on the next in line. Put the money you were paying on the one you just paid off and apply it plus the payment you were making on that card. The hard part is the first card, after that it begins to gain speed. The main thing is not to use the cards any more, leave them at home. If you do not have them you can not use them. And to cancel them as soon as you make that last payment.
I have a lot of cc debt. I don’t know who to trust as a debt settlement professional. Does anyone has any experience in that?
What keeps most people in debt is the fact that they keep spending more money than they make. They look at the "monthly payments" instead of the total debt loan that they are carrying. People need to stop spending now and concentrate on becoming debt free. Please do not consolidate or use a debt reduction company . It is not free, they will lower your payments by increasing the length of time until you are debt free, and you will take a hit on your credit score. Or they negotiate your debt down after telling you not to pay for awhile adding another hit to your credit score. Student loans are the only debt that can garnish your wages for non payment without taking you to court first. Just list them out on a piece of paper or a spreadsheet and follow the plan. If you work the plan, the plan will work for you.
A. Have a garage sale and sell anything that you no longer need or want.
B.Get a temporary part time job, if you have one, get another.
Here is a plan that can help you. If you work the plan, the plan will work for you:
1. Make a budget. Make the budget a week before you get paid. A budget is not a punishment! It is a tool which will free you from ever having to worry about money again. Put everything in your budget. Especially those annual, biannual, or quarterly bills like car registration, insurance, etc. Give every dollar you are going to bring home the name of where it is going. Add an "emergency fund" category to your budget for 25 dollars and save up until you have 1000-1250 dollars. Your emergency fund will help keep you from getting into new debt because of an emergency. If you can, set up a direct transfer to a savings account for your emergency fund. That way it moves automatically and you don’t even have to worry about it. You must cut your spending and live on less than you make.
2.First get current on all of you debts and make no more late payments. Stop using your credit cards immediately. Do not take on any more debt. Credit cards are like quicksand only the death is much slower. Make a list of all of your debts in order of highest interest rate to lowest interest. Use cash only for your spending from now on.
3.Pay the minimum due on all of your debts and then put your extra money towards paying off the highest interest one first. After you get that one paid off, you put the money you were paying on debt #1 (the minimum payment and the extra payment) towards debt #2. That will pay debt #2 off faster. When that is paid off, you put all three payments towards card #3 and that one will be paid off pretty quickly. As an example:
To start :
Debt #1 (highest interest): minimum payment+ extra payment
Debt #2 (middle interest): minimum payment
Debt #3(lowest interest): minimum payment
Debt #1: paid off
Debt #2: minimum payment from Debt #1+ Minimum payment from Debt #2 +extra payment
Debt #3: minimum payment
Debt #1: paid off
Debt #2: paid off
Debt #3:Minimum payment from card #1+ minimum payment from Debt #2+ minimum payment from Debt #3+ extra payment.
That way, you will get them all paid off, on time, and pay the least interest. It will also help towards rebuilding your credit since you will no longer have any late payments. This works no matter how many different debts you may have.
4. After you get all of your debts paid off, add to your emergency fund until you have 6-12 months of income saved up. Put that emergency fund money into a liquid money market fund or into a Bank of America no-risk CD so that if you need the money you can take it out without penalty.
5a. When you have your emergency fund in place, add a category for "fun" to your budget. Save for a holiday, a vacation, a big screen, or dinners out, whatever goal you want. Remember to enjoy your life.
5b. When you have your emergency fund in place, start saving for your retirement. Join the 401(k) plan at work and contribute the maximum. Your employer probably matches at least part of your contribution so why give up free money? Open a Roth IRA and contribute the maximum on a monthly basis. If you start saving for your retirement now, you will probably retire a millionaire.
5c. When you have your emergency fund in place, start saving for your next car. Only buy cars, or other things that depreciate, with cash. Save up for a nicer car. That way you get the interest instead of paying the interest.
You can do it and it isn’t as hard as you think. Just follow the plan
I was wondering if anyone knows which companies offer the best debt consolidation loans. I would like to consolidate my credit cards and my vehicle loan if possible. I have done some research online but have only found a few companies that offer debt consolidation loans and I am not sure who would be best to go with. I am not behind on my payments and do not need credit counseling debt management. I do have a lot of debt though and would like to consolidate into one monthly payment to help save interest and to save a little money each month.
Why get a debt consolidation loan? These companies don’t do this for free you know. How sure are you that the first couple of payments you send them are actually going to pay off your debt, instead of there pockets? My advice to you is get a part time job and pay down your debt that way. Atleast you know where the money is going and its free!!!
You can find management companies, you will have great difficulty finding good ones.
Think about it, you already owe money, then a management company adds on their fees so you owe even more money.
The Citizens Advice Bureau provide the service free, I suggest you approach them first.
I have a credit card debt of about $9,600.00 with a major credit card provider. They are charging me 24.99% interest. The minimum payment is around $300.00 and $200.00 of this is interest. What would be the best thing to do? Should I use a debt management program to pay it off or stop paying it all together and let it go to a collection agency where I could then settle with them and ask that when I settle that they remove the negative information from my credit report?
these are good at what they do and BBB approved etc: http://www.esuperfind.com/lowermybills.php?id=tnh
The way it is done (if approved) they’ll pay your debts in full thus effectively transferring your debt to them.
You then pay them at a lower interest rate.
If you let it go to collections you’ll have it in your credit score for the next 6 years.
I need information on what a good credit counseling or debt reduction company is, and if anyone has personal experience or recommendations.
Please do not do "credit counseling", "debt reduction", or "debt consolidation". It will show up on your credit report like a bankruptcy. It is also not free. There is a charge for the company to do it, they will negotiate with the creditors to either take less than you owe (another "ding" on the credit report), or to space the payments out for a longer period (which will cost you more in interest payments), and it will just take longer for you to get out of debt. Here is a plan that will get you out of debt and allow you to never worry about money again. You just have to decide to do it. If you work the plan, the plan will work for you. Get all of the debt paid off as soon as possible, that will enable you to start building real wealth.
A. Have a garage sale and sell whatever you don’t use or need and use that money to pay down your debt.
B. Consider getting a temporary part time job and use all of that salary to pay off your debt quicker. It is better to have a no fun year
than a no fun decade.
1. Make a budget. Make the budget a week before you get paid. A budget is not a punishment! It is a tool which will free you from ever having to worry about money again. Put everything in your budget. Especially those annual, biannual, or quarterly bills like car registration, insurance, etc. Give every dollar you are going to bring home the name of where it is going. Add an "emergency fund" category to your budget for 25 dollars and save up until you have 1000-1250 dollars. Your emergency fund will help keep you from getting into new debt because of an emergency. If you can, set up a direct transfer to a savings account for your emergency fund. That way it moves automatically and you don’t even have to worry about it. You must cut your spending and live on less than you make. Pay cash for everything. If you can’t pay cash or write a check, then you don’t need it. Do not use credit cards. Debt (especially credit card debt with it’s high interest rates) is like quicksand, if you fall in, you will drown.
2.First get current on all of you debts, if you are not already, and make no more late payments, if you have had any. Stop using your credit cards immediately. Do not take on any more debt. Credit cards are like quicksand only the death is much slower. Make a list of all of your debts in order of highest interest rate to lowest interest. Use cash only for your spending from now on. If it is not on your budget, then you don’t need it. If you forget to add a necessity to your budget one month then re do the budget. If you add something in, you will need to take some money out somewhere else.
3.Pay the minimum due on all of your debts and then put your extra money towards paying off the highest interest one first. After you get that one paid off, you put the money you were paying on debt #1 (the minimum payment and the extra payment) towards debt #2. That will pay debt #2 off faster. When that is paid off, you put all three payments towards card #3 and that one will be paid off pretty quickly. As an example:
To start :
Debt #1 (highest interest): minimum payment+ extra payment
Debt #2 (middle interest): minimum payment
Debt #3(lowest interest): minimum payment
Debt #1: paid off
Debt #2: minimum payment from Debt #1+ Minimum payment from Debt #2 +extra payment
Debt #3: minimum payment
Debt #1: paid off
Debt #2: paid off
Debt #3: minimum payment from card #1+ minimum payment from Debt #2+ minimum payment from Debt #3+ extra payment.
That way, you will get them all paid off, on time, and pay the least interest. It will also help towards rebuilding your credit since you will no longer have any late payments. This works no matter how many different debts you may have.
4. After you get all of your debts paid off, add to your emergency fund until you have 6-12 months of income saved up. Put that emergency fund money into a liquid money market fund or into a Bank of America no-risk CD so that if you need the money you can take it out without penalty.
5a. When you have your emergency fund in place, add a category for "fun" to your budget. Save for a holiday, a vacation, a big screen, or dinners out, whatever goal you want. Remember to enjoy your life.
5b. When you have your emergency fund in place, start saving for your retirement. Join the 401(k) plan at work and contribute the maximum. Your employer probably matches at least part of your contribution so why give up free money? The Human resources Department will have the forms for you to fill out. Open a Roth IRA and contribute the maximum on a monthly basis. If you start saving for your retirement now, you will probably retire a millionaire. Start learning about investments. Do some reading. I like "The Lies About Money" by Ric Edelman, "Ready, Set, Retire" by Ray Lucia, and anything by Ed Slott. They are very good books and each has a little different perspective so you can decide your own comfort level with your investment
I would like to get a debt consolidation loan for my outstanding debt from closed credit cards, old utility bills, etc
I have student loans, but I would like to consolidate them separatley and not through another loan.
Also, I have an auto loan, would the loan be able to cover that as well?
Please, real answers, and no opinions/judgements.
Thank You.
You probably could however the interest rate may be high. I would start with your own bank as they know you the best. I work as a customer service agent with GMAC where I deal with people asking about refinancing all the time and I refer them to their own bank or credit union. They might be able to work out a deal because you have a "professional/personal" relationship with them.
I owe about $12,000 in credit card debt and I wanted to make that my year’s goal to pay it off, but a lot of the websites I find require that you own a home, or charge a huge interest for someone to "negotiate" with your creditors to bring down interest. Does anyone know of a good resource where I can just consolidate the debt and make one reasonable payment?
You can go to a bank for a signature loan. Enough to pay one or two cards. By taking out the loan you may pay 12% interest; and retire a credit card at 23% interest. Make the payoff of your loan over 3 years and place the extra monthly cash against another card, the highest interest payment.
OR Pay the minimum on all your credit cards and the balance into savings. Look for a house, when you find a place you can afford to buy YOUR RENT MONEY WILL WORK FOR YOU. The purpose is credit control not the "castle of your dreams".
“My name is Gary Ross, and I’m a member of the Consumer Credit Rights Campaign.”
After losing his job and spending a year and a half out of work, Gary had accumulated so much debt that he didn’t expect to be able to pay it off within his lifetime. Even after finding a job, he could only make the minimum payments. “My future seemed rather bleak,” he admits.
Fortunately, he had options. He worked with a debt settlement company. They helped him create a plan to settle his debts, make payments to his creditors, and find financial security.
“During the current economic climate… debt settlement companies play an even bigger role in helping people,” he says. “I think that option should be available to everyone.”
Duration : 0:3:27
The factors that make up a beacon score, or credit score, are past credit scores, debt ratio, length of loans, recent inquiries into credit and types of credit. Obtain copies of your credit score from each credit reporting bureau with tips from a financial service specialist in this free video on credit counseling.
Expert: William Rae
Contact: www.hbwfl.com
Bio: William Rae has been licensed in the insurance and financial fields for more than 30 years.
Filmmaker: Christopher Rokosz
Duration : 0:2:26