Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Don't Let A Debt Consolidation Grow Into Your Ensuing Bad Decision

By Frank Froggatt

The process of debt consolidation allows you to put all of your higher interest charging cards and bills into a single payment that not only has a lower rate of interest, but a lower payment to boot. It has been used by many debtors to plan for a bill relief. A debt consolidation is most often accompanied with a debt consolidation loan. The debt consolidation loan will be used to payoff all your high interest debts and you just need to concentrate on single monthly payment to clear the bill consolidation loan. So in effect this one loan will effectively help you to reach your goals of living a debt free life.

When your bill are paid off with the loan, your credit card balances will then be placed to a zero balance again giving you the maximum limit to use once again. Because of this fact, you need to be extremely careful about your spending habits. If you don't and you continue down the path of using your cards and only paying the minimum amount each month, you will quickly find yourself in the same situation again that you are trying to dig yourself out of.

If you are in the process of getting a debt consolidation loan right now you understand that it is not an easy process. Don't make things worse on yourself by doing the same things that got you into this hot water in the first place. Things that you can do to avoid it from happening are:

1. Alter Your Spending Behavior

If you have the bad habit of purchasing what you want when you see it on a whim, then you are what is commonly referred to as and impulse buyer. Impulse buying behavior may cause you to spend out of your budget. Because of this it is extremely important to change this behavior and resist the temptations to buy compulsively otherwise you will find yourself in an even deeper hole than you are already in. The debt will just snowball itself uncontrollably and it will get to become a serious problem within a short period of time. To keep yourself from falling into this type of temptation, you should make yourself a list before going to any store and commit yourself to only getting what is on it.

2. Construct A Budget Plan

Having a budget plan is critical if you wish to get control of your money spending habits as it will allow you to see how much you have coming in as well as going out.If you are in a debt consolidation loan program then it is a must that you make sure to include the monthly payment into the budget so that you are assured the money will always be in place to cover the expense. If the amount of money that you are bringing in is less than the money that you are used to spending then you really need to modify your lifestyle to fit your budget. Either that or figure out how you can get more income coming into the household in order to afford the things that you want. Some ways that you might consider cutting back would be to stop buying designer clothes or shoes, or clip some coupons so that you can save cash on your grocery bill. It all adds up at the end of the month.

3. Avert Swiping Your Charge Card

It is far to easy to simply swipe your charge card to pay for something instead of writing a check or paying in cash. Because of this fact it is easy to swipe the card more often than you intend and lose track of how much you actually spent until you receive that monthly bill in the mail. So I have to give you the advice again to leave the card at home so there is no temptation to use it. A really smart move would be to cut up all of your cards but one that you might need for an emergency. Do not tell the companies to close your accounts as this will have a bad reflection on your credit score, simply get rid of the cards so you cannot use them.

4. Produce Full Payment On charge card Remainder

If there is some odd reason that you cannot stop using credit cards, then it has to be one of you main priorities to make sure that the entire balance gets paid at the end of each billing cycle. I strenuously advise against this type of thing though as with the fact that LIFE happen and misfortune of some sort always rears it's head which results in the charge card bill being put on the bottom of the list. This will lead to another complete disaster.

In Summary

Working through a bill consolidation is a fantastic way to get yourself out of bill as it is a solution that works when implemented correctly. On the other hand if you continue with your spending habits you will end up in a situation even worse than when you began. Hence, you need to accompany bill consolidation with a proper cash management to ensure your bill issue resolve. - 29904

About the Author:

No comments:

Post a Comment