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So What Is A Debt Consolidation And Is It A Good Idea For You?

July 25th, 2009 No comments


First of all we must start by saying the debt consolidation loans may not be a good idea for you. In fact many dubious loans are often “sold” as debt consolidation loans when they are just a bad loan you wouldn’t want to touch with a barge pole.
Debt consolidation loans are loans that are purchased to pay off loans. This is especially attractive for people who have a number of loans with different companies. For example a good candidate for a debt consolidation loan might have a few thousand dollars in credit cards, a car loan and a mortgage to pay. The credit card loans probably are set at a 16% interest rate, while the car loan will probably be a little lower at around 10%, with the mortgage at even less probably around 7% depending when the person got the mortgage and how good the deal was. Unless this person has an incredible wage he is probably in a bit of trouble as his monthly credit card debts, car loan and mortgage are eating up most of his income. A debt consolidation loan will pay for all his debts and allow his monthly payments and his interest rate to drop.

How do they work?

Debt consolidation loans often work by extending the length of the loan. If you owe a total of $90,000 to 3 different lenders it will pay all of them with a large loan and charge you the total as a single mortgage-like loan. When you are paying for credit cards the time you have to pay back differs from credit card to credit card, you might have to pay a minimum, or you might be suffering from the high interest rate that seems to be increasing your debt faster than you can pay it. Your car loan will be set at another rate of payment, as will your mortgage. Paying for various loans at the same time can make it impossible for a household to meet this payments, however if these loans are combined into one large loan, the payments can be reduced and made affordable for the borrower.
What is good about debt consolidation loans?
Debt consolidation loans can allow a household to take control of their monthly expenses and get to the end of the month without having to get further into debt. For some people it is the only real option besides either losing their home, their car or even declaring bankruptcty.

What are the cons of debt consolidation loans?
They can be expensive. Debt consolidation loan providers are not often charitable organizations if you get my drift. They are there for the profit and know that people will be willing to pay a lot of money to bring down their monthly payments to an affordable level. Debt consolidation loan lenders will often charge large fees for their services and provide sub premium (higher than normal) interest rates. By extending the loan borrowers will often automatically pay more interest because the tenure of the loan is longer even if the interest rates are lower.

They can cause you to lose your home. Debt consolidation loans are often designed to be linked to your home as security. If your loans were made up of credit card and car loans you might have been struggling to pay them but your house was never at risk. Credit card handlers cannot force you to sell your house to pay them. However if you get a debt consolidation loan with your home as a security and you cannot make the payments you could lose your home.

Related posts:

  1. Common pitfalls of debt consolidation you must avoid.
  2. Debt management, art of making the best of a bad situation
  3. Bad Credit, How To Break TheCycle Of Debt

Related posts:
  1. Common pitfalls of debt consolidation you must avoid.
  2. Debt management, art of making the best of a bad situation
  3. Bad Credit, How To Break TheCycle Of Debt

Debt management, art of making the best of a bad situation

July 23rd, 2009 No comments


Debt management, art of making the best of a bad situation

So you are in serious debt. Really serious debt. You are actually quite desperate because you have no idea how you got in such a pickle and even less of an idea how you are going to get out. Debt management is your newest best friend. What is debt management and how can it help you to get out of debt?
Debt management is the art of taking control of your debt and using the tools at your disposal to minimize the cost and damage of debt. Debt management is not a single solution like a magic pill or a silver bullet, it is more like a way of thinking, an attitude that helps you make the right decisions to get yourself out of serious debt.

Debt management affects our lifestyle, our spending habits and our financial decisions. The principles behind Debt Management are simple: Understand your debt, minimize your debt and control your debt.
This is how it works:

Understand your debt.
You need to know how bad your situation is before you can fix it. Many people develop such a phobia to their debt, they try to ignore it ostrich style, and this obviously creates problems of its own burying the person deeper into debt.  So get paper and pen and write out exactly what you owe, that includes your mortgage, credit cards, car loans, everything and include the interest rates you are paying on them.

Minimize your debt.
The second step after understanding your debt is to start to managing your debt by taking decisive action. Your first priority is to work out what your income is and compare it to your monthly expenses. This is where debt management gets really hard. Often people who are in serious debt have got used to spending more than they have and reducing their quality of life or spending habits seems impossible. However you will have to be hard on yourself, get your income and work out a budget that will fit into it. Working out a budget is a living project you will never finish, in you might have to re-design your budget after step 3, the important thing is to realize your limits and stick within them.

Minimize your debt.
There are different ways of minimizing your debt, lets have a look at two.

Debt management tools that will help your minimize your debt include debt consolidation and creating extra income to pay your debt.
Debt consolidation refers to taking on a large loan to pay for a bunch of smaller loans. This can be beneficial because one large loan can mean cheaper monthly payments and a lower interest rate.

You can also try to create some extra cash to pay your mortgage from assets, selling things you no longer need or can do without, redeeming of shares and insurance policies. It is often worth cashing in on an investment that is growing slower than your debt, once your  debt is under control you can start to save again.

Related posts:

  1. Common pitfalls of debt consolidation you must avoid.
  2. Relief at the end of the tunnel of debt.
  3. Bad credit, how to break the cycle of debt

Related posts:
  1. Common pitfalls of debt consolidation you must avoid.
  2. Relief at the end of the tunnel of debt.
  3. Bad credit, how to break the cycle of debt

[Feature] Positive Mortgage Crisis Side Effect: U.S. Household Debt Declines

January 15th, 2009 No comments
In the midst of a financial crisis, the likes of which the U.S hasn't seen in more than 50 years, an interesting side effect has taken place: Consumer debt has declined. This trend, startling for a country that has long relied on credit cards, may be an indication of a nationwide shift in spending habits.

Positive Mortgage Crisis Side Effect: U.S. Household Debt Declines

January 15th, 2009 No comments
In the midst of a financial crisis, the likes of which the U.S hasn't seen in more than 50 years, an interesting side effect has taken place: Consumer debt has declined. This trend, startling for a country that has long relied on credit cards, may be an indication of a nationwide shift in spending habits.

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