Credit Counseling and How It Could Help You
Millions of Americans are stuck in debt that has not only consumed them financially, but is threatening every aspect of their life. Thankfully, there are ways out of the quagmire. Credit counseling is one of those ways, and for those people who don’t want to wind up in bankruptcy court, it can sometimes make the most sense. Here’s how it could help you.
If you’re struggling to make your minimum payments,
you should already be looking at credit counseling as a viable option. Failure to make those payments can result in a disastrous turnaround for your credit rating, something that can take years to rebound. Not only that, but there are immediate financial consequences for missing payments. Credit card companies may offer wonderful interest rates to get you to sign on, but at the first sign of missed payments, you can expect those rates to skyrocket. Suddenly, making the minimum payment isn’t enough. It will take you a lifetime to pay off that debt unless you have a sound strategy.
A good credit counseling service will concentrate first on finding out where you are financially. They will look at how much income you have coming in and how much you have going right back out the door. This is where the first of the problems can often be corrected. Because we live in a society obsessed with consumerism, people have a tendency to live well beyond their means. Some of this may be due to children wanting to live immediately in the fashion that their parents live, unable to grasp that it might have taken decades for their parents to build up that financial security.
A credit counseling service can teach you how to form a budget. Staying within that budget will be up to you, of course, but just having the information is more than you likely had before. One reason that people tend to spend so much more than they make is that they have no idea how much their lives cost. They make general assumptions and just figure everything will work out in the end. It won’t. Unless you budget things down to the last dollar, you’ll never know exactly what your standard of living should be and how to avoid exceeding it.
Some credit counseling services go beyond a teaching capacity and will actually attempt to renegotiate debt on your behalf. This will add additional obligations to your load, but it can mean finally walking a path that will lead to financial independence. Take advantage of these programs if you can, but remember that failure to meet the requirements could put you in a worse situation down the line.
