Credit Counseling Therapy

Interested in become a credit counselor and helping free the captives to the slavery of debt – you know – having to go to work to pay the ever increasing spiraling debt. Here is some wisdom to share with your friends about Debt Management.

A world run on credit is what we are witnessing. The US government took a couple of hundred years to accumulate the first trillion dollars of debt. Now it is only a matter of a few years and another trillion is added to the national debt.

This is a serious issue. It is due to the ‘open circle’ mentality that pervades modern day society. We don’t like limits, restrictions and boundaries. Most people live to the limits not of their income but the limits of their multiple credit cards, their large credit lines on their houses, store cards, car leases, personal loans etc etc…

Being a psychologist I witness this over extension of the limits not only with our money but with our time as well. Generally we are a society where we break our budgets for both time and money which has a devastating effect on our social lives, our family lives and our spiritual and emotional well being.

There is an interesting scripture in Matthew 5 (a chapter in the Bible) and it states that ‘The meek shall inherit the earth’. What does meek mean? It basically means to live within the limits. To schedule what your time with some margin left. To budget with some margin. This means you have some resources not only for your own peace of mind but so you have the time and money to help others.

A Credit Counseling debt solution:

Make a list of all debts and list them smallest to largest. Apply 5-10% of household income and then adding that amount to the lowest debt.
Once the debt is paid then take this extra amount as well as the previous minimum payment and apply that to the next debt on the list.
Continue to apply this strategy to every debt on the list.Within 5-9 years you will be able to eliminate every debt including your house mortgage.
The other possibility to is to refinance your smaller debts with the equity from your house or your investment property.

However if you choose to do this then you need to ensure that you take the minimum payment you used to pay on the debt you consolidated and pay that off your mortgage.

© Wellness Corp Pty Ltd

People often get to a place where they simply can’t pay their bills, especially in today’s economy which is not particularly sympathetic toward the poor or even the middle class. Inflation has impacted nearly every facet of daily life including food, gas, rent, clothes, utility bills and more. At the same time, salaries, especially in the lower ranges, have utterly failed to keep pace. When you get to the place where you cannot pay your bills and have money left over for food and other necessities, there are some hard decisions that have to be faced. The options are credit counseling and debt management services, or bankruptcy. Both have their pros and cons, so which road to take depends largely on the individual and how severe his or her financial problems have grown.

There are numerous credit counseling/debt management services available, both in most local communities and over the Internet. The services vary considerably, for example some charge fees and exist to make a profit, while others are strictly operated by volunteers and don’t charge fees for their services. Some services are certified or accredited, and others are not. Some guarantee confidentiality, and unfortunately, others do not.

If your debt situation has not yet reached a point of no return, credit counseling and debt management may be the best option for you. This is the way it works:

• Check out a variety of counseling services, both in your community and on the Internet to determine which best suits your needs. Avoid those that charge high fees, do not guarantee your privacy and that don’t have any credentials or accreditations to offer.
• Make an appointment with the agency of your choice. When you go to the appointment, take as much of your paperwork and documentation with you as possible, i.e. proof of your expenses and income, along with verification of the debts you owe.
• The counselor will review your situation and develop a plan to help you pay off your bills. Legitimate counseling services can often persuade your creditors to take less than the total amount you owe and arrange for longer periods of time to pay the debt off.
• Instead of paying your bills directly, in most cases, you make one monthly payment to the counseling service, which then distributes that amount among your creditors according to the agreements they have worked out. The arrangement leaves you enough money to live and halts collection procedures. Over a period of time, all your bills are paid in full and you essentially have a new start, provided you don’t get yourself back into additional debt in the meantime.

On the other hand, if you have too much debt and your creditors are not inclined to work out payment arrangements with you, the best possibility may be declaring bankruptcy. There are numerous bankruptcy attorneys and, again, it behooves you to shop around to obtain the best possible services at the least possible price.

It is wisest to work with an attorney who does a lot of bankruptcy work because he or she will be most familiar with the rules and regulations as well as with the judges and bankruptcy trustees who work in the local system. A good attorney will know what the trustees and the courts will allow and what they won’t, and will be able to advise you as to your best options.
There are two kinds of bankruptcies available to individual debtors. Those are Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. Chapter 7 is a complete discharge of all nonsecured debts, and some secured ones, generally including everything except taxes and school loans. The debtor generally has to give up anything of value that can be sold to pay his or her debts, although in most cases a person’s home and their primary transportation are exempted. In a Chapter 13, nothing has to be given up, but the debts have to be paid in full. The court simply works out a repayment plan and instead of paying the money to your debtors, you pay it to the bankruptcy trustee who then distributes it to the creditors. There are advantages and disadvantages, as well as eligibility requirements, for both types of bankruptcy and the bankruptcy attorney can best advise you which option will work better in your particular situation.

Whether you choose credit counseling or bankruptcy, either one can help you eliminate debt and get back on your financial feet. Both can stop collections procedures and eliminate annoying and harassing phone calls from collectors. The bottom line is, you don’t have to continue suffering

All to often credit is fun, easy to get and even easier to use. Many people find that even though they have an excellent income, that they can not keep up with their current debt load and even if they are managing to make their monthly payments they are not getting ahead. Is there a solution to this situation without having to claim bankruptcy or adversely effecting your credit score?

Credit counseling may very well be the answer for this type of situation. Credit counseling is designed to help correct your problem without impacting your credit score and may actually help improve your credit score. Credit counseling works by ensuring that all of your creditors are getting paid on time, eliminates the trap of revolving credit and helps you to learn to over come your credit problems.

Upon entering into a credit-counseling program you will be asked for financial details and to surrender most of your credit cards. Almost all programs acknowledge that you need a credit card or two for business or travel and will not try to restrict your ability to work and live in a reasonable fashion. Once your situation is assessed a plan will be made so that your will be debt free in three or four years and you will be offered the help you need to keep out of the situation that you are currently in.
While your credit score will not be effected an entry will be placed on your file. The entry on your file will generally say “DMP” or “credit counseling”. This entry is put there to you from obtaining additional credit cards. Once you have completed your credit counseling this entry is generally removed or updated to reflect that you have finished the program.

One thing that will effect your credit rating is the promptness of your credit-counseling agency. When you are in a credit-counseling program you will give the agency a monthly check that they will use to pay your creditors. If the agency does not pay your creditors on time or in full your credit score will be impacted. Be sure to check out the history of your credit-counseling agency to avoid this.

As you might assume, committing to a credit-counseling program does require a lot of work and conviction from you. The hardest part for many people is to break the habit of reaching for a credit card to pay for a bill that just came in the mail. The second hardest thing for most people to do is to learn to live within in their means. Everyone likes instant gratification and often we feel entitled to it, but perhaps if we had shown a little more discipline in the first place we wouldn’t need credit counseling now.

As you can see, credit counseling is a good and reasonable option if you find yourself with too much debt. Credit counseling will not effect your credit score and will ultimately make you a better person as you will learn better skills for handling your money. If you find yourself slipping into revolving credit card debt problems make sure you take the correct steps to resolve the problem before you are forced into bankruptcy.

“Cut Your Payments in Half!” the headline screams. “Consolidate Your Bills into One Low Monthly Payment!”

When you see ads like this, they are often from Credit Counseling firms. In this article, I’ll explain the principles behind the Credit Counseling approach and discuss the main problem consumers face when they join one of these programs.

First, let’s get our definitions straight. The term “Credit Counseling” is actually quite misleading, since it has nothing to do with preserving or improving your credit score. In fact, Credit Counseling will often damage your credit, an unpleasant reality that is sometimes downplayed by industry representatives.

Credit Counseling is a debt management program where you make a single monthly payment to an agency. In turn, that agency distributes the money to your creditors on your behalf, ideally at lower interest rates so you can pay off the debt faster. Credit Counseling should not be confused with Debt Consolidation, Debt Settlement, or Debt Termination. Each of these debt programs takes a very different approach from Credit Counseling.

Of all the available debt options, Credit Counseling is by far the most popular, with millions of Americans participating. Does this mean it’s the best choice for most people struggling with debt? No! There are numerous problems with this approach.

In recent years, the Credit Counseling industry has been heavily criticized by impartial consumer groups like the Consumer Federation of America. But these criticisms often miss the mark entirely. They usually focus on the aggressive companies that use their non-profit status to trick consumers into thinking they are charitable organizations, or even that their services are free of charge. In reality, these outfits charge hefty “voluntary” contributions, often adding up to hundreds of dollars, plus steep monthly fees as well.

However, I’m not talking here about the bad companies who provide little or no actual “counseling,” or the ones that are only in business to make their owners rich. No, I’m talking about serious problems with the actual business model itself. So let’s take a closer look at how Credit Counseling works.
Let’s say you owe $25,000 on several different credit cards. Let’s also assume your average interest rate before you enrolled was 20% (which is actually low these days, especially if you’ve missed any payments). Your minimum monthly payments are $500, which you’ve been struggling to keep up with. At this rate, it will take a whopping 109 months (more than 9 years) to pay off your debts, assuming you don’t miss a single payment along the way.

You enroll in a Credit Counseling program that promises to get you out of debt faster. But does it? Assuming your creditors agree to participate in the program (not always the case), the real key is the concession they will grant on your interest rates. In prior years, creditors looked more favorably on Credit Counseling and they offered steep discounts off the normal interest rates. But lately they have squeezed the industry, and the concessions are not so good any more. Currently, most of the major players will reduce interest rates down to a range of 7% on the low side to 18% on the high side. We’ll use 12% as the average.

So if you keep your payments at $500 per month at the new 12% rate, how long will it take? First, we need to deduct the monthly fee charged by the agency. In this example, we’ll use a fee of $25 per month, so $475 of your $500 will go toward debt reduction. The good news is you’ll be out of debt faster. The bad news is that it will still take 75 months (more than 6 years) to become debt-free.

But what happens if you can’t keep up with that $500 per month? After all, you sought help from a credit counselor because you were struggling financially, right? Let’s say you drop down to $450 per month. After deducting the $25 monthly fee, that leaves $425 toward your debt plan. Now you’re looking at 90 months (7 years & 6 months), which is not much better than the 109 months you started out with.

So how can credit counselors claim to cut your payments in half? Good question. If you dropped down to $250 per month, you’ll never pay off your debt! At 12% interest, the debt will climb faster than your $250 per month can reduce it. The lowest you could go would be $300 per month. However, it would now take 20 years to pay off the debt, hardly an improvement!
In order to truly cut your payments in half, down to $250 in this example, the agency would need to completely eliminate all interest! And even then, it would still take more than 9 years to pay off the balance! So the ads claiming you can cut your payments in half are simply false.

Bear in mind here that in our example, we’re assuming you’re working with a good company that charges low fees and actually obtains good interest rate concessions from all of your creditors. Even with the best of credit counselors, you’re still looking at a 5-9 year program to pay off your debts.
That’s why Credit Counseling is usually only effective for people with short-term financial problems. Consumers with long-term financial instability have trouble keeping up with the regular payment stream required to make these programs work. The result? Even the most favorable statistics show that about 3 out of 4 people drop out of Credit Counseling programs before completing them.

If you do decide to join one of these programs in order to obtain some short-term relief, be sure to do your homework first. Here are a few tips to help in your selection:
1. Look for a company that actually provides old-fashioned budget advice and counseling. If they want to sign you up right away without first understanding your budget situation, move on!
2. Obtain copies of the contract and read it carefully before signing up. Make sure you understand all of the fees involved. Are there enrollment fees? “Voluntary” contributions? Monthly fees? Extra fees per account? These hidden fees can add up to big bucks.
3. Make sure they work with all the creditors on your list and not just some of them.
4. Don’t be fooled by “non-profit” status. That doesn’t guarantee you’re dealing with a good company. And it certainly doesn’t mean the service is free!
5. Aim to find a local company that you can visit in person. Check out your target company with the local Better Business Bureau.
6. Make sure they provide support after the sale. Try calling their customer service number to see if you can get through promptly.

Remember, you can eliminate your debts if you take a disciplined approach to your finances, make a budget and stick to it, and don’t use your credit cards unless you can pay off new balances in full each month.
Good luck in your financial future!

Building your credit is a sure-fired solution for stopping creditors and collection agencies from nagging you every day. If you are attempting to reestablish your status in life, you must realize there is a bumpy road ahead.

Creditors are people you owe and if you do not pay, the creditors will go lengths to get their money. Regardless of the laws and regulations stipulated on credit bureaus, creditors, collection agencies, and other sources that collect debt, many will break all the laws, simply because they want their money.

Money has been the root of all humankind evil and when it comes to money, everybody wants some. The best solution to stopping creditors and collection agencies ahead of the game is to pay those bills on time.
If you have utilities, insurance policies, car payments, mortgages, credit cards, and other debts you might want to layout a budget plan that you can meet each month. Combining all your payments will help you see where dangers lurk. If you see, any potential risks ahead make sure to find a solution ahead of the game to avoid creditors and collection agency hassles.
No one likes it when people nag us, but when we owe money, you can bet your last dollar nagging is in the making. Do not bite off more than you can chew. If you see that, you are in debt deeper than you thought do not go out to the department stores and shop until you drop.

This will only make matters worse and you are risking your home, car, and other assets in the process. If you see that you are in over your head or potential risks could develop, you might want to get ahead by selling a few valuable items.

When you are paid for, the items make sure you apply the funds to your bills, or else open a savings account that will benefit you and your money. Savings that offer no start up fees or interest against your money is the best solution for saving cash.

If you get money back or interest on your money in the bank, how much better, you are making money. Money is what makes the world go around, so if you can make money you will have a solution for building your credit.
The last thing you want is escalating to a debt you can get out of and having creditors call you daily. After creditors calls, then you will get calls from collection agencies.

After the two are done torturing you mentally, you will have to deal with lawyers, judges, and other potential threatening personnel. I point this out because many people do not realize the severity of ignoring their bills. If you have a good credit standing currently, it is wise to get copies of your credit reports from the three B’s.

Keeping your file on hand and current can help you to monitor your credit scores. If you notice any activity on your report that is against you and you did not agree to the debt, it is important to contact the credit bureaus immediately.

Your credit is in all aspects of the word your life. If you have bad credit you can be turned down from a job, denied a rental, or turned down when you apply for any line of credit. If you have bad credit you might as well blackball today.

There is hope however if you have bad credit. Government agencies and private institutes are teaming up to help those of us with bad credit. The impossible has happen, because now even if your credit is bad you can get a loan, a home, car, or even a credit card.

Pre-paid cards are available to those with bad credit. Pre-paid cards are the same in contrast as major credit cards, only you apply money to the account, paying a low fee and then you can use the card. The world is starting to recognize the struggles that happen every day for many families and individuals, the best solution however for stopping creditors is to build your credit by paying those bills. Never give up hope!