Using Debt Consolidation To Manage Your Debts

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 29th, 2010

Debt consolidation is where you take all your outstanding debt and roll it up into one debt with one payment. This is often necessary in order to reduce the amount of interest you are being charged and to increase the principal amount being paid to your creditors.

Using debt consolidation solutions can be a good option if you find yourself in the situation where you debts are out of control and you are borrowing every month just to keep up with minimum payments. There are a variety of debt consolidation solutions. These include negotiating privately with your lenders, using consumer credit counseling services, taking out a second mortgage on your home or transferring your balances to a low interest credit card.

Sometimes you will need the help of a debt consolidation service to manage this process. This service can be in touch with your creditors and negotiate smaller payments. The advantages of this type of plan are that you can pay one fixed payment to them every month and they will distribute it to your creditors. A debt consolidation service can also negotiate lower interest rates on your behalf.

Simply put, debt consolidation is a personalized system that allows you to pay down your debt, eventually paying it all off. You do this with a single payment to the debt consolidation agency, and then pays pre-agreed on amounts to each of your creditors. Credit cards, store cards and unsecured loans are the main types of accounts you can consolidate into this program.

Once you have decided to use a debt consolidation, it is important to begin on the plan to repay your debts as soon as possible, and to stop taking on new debt as well.

In almost all cases debt consolidation is preferable to filing for bankruptcy for the simple reason that your lenders will view you in a better light for being willing to pay off your debts and make arrangements to do this. This is much better for them than if you file for bankruptcy and have your debts erased.

In summary, using debt consolidation solutions can help you to reduce your debt and still be a responsible credit consumer. This can help you to preserve your credit profile and avoid filing for bankruptcy. This is always preferable and will reflect favorably on your to your current a future creditors.