Hey ladies,

I just had a quick question about this. Dh and I are wanting to try debt consolidation cause of all our bills and well they just seem to keep piling up. Anyways, I just wanted to know if any of you have done this and if you had any good recommendations for any places before I go about googling it lol. TIA !!!

I;ve never used it, but I've been told that some places are bad ones and you really have to do your research on which one you go with. Have you guys tried some serious budgeting?? DH and I had so many bills when we first got married, and the only way we were able to get rid of them was to put ourselves on a very strict budget. We canceled our cable and internet, got the cheapest cell phone plan, I worked overtime, and tried to just pay as much as we could to everything. I think we lived off of ramen noodles and cheap shampoo and everything!!! Heehe!!! I was really crappy-we even lived in like, a 500 sq. foot apartment and everything, but in 6 months, we were able to purchase our new house, move and everything. Now, we still have a decent amount of bills, but not a ton of debt, so it ended up working out for us. We had considered using a debt consolidation, but decided that we would try a strict budget first, an it worked for us!!! I'd definately recomend trying that(if you haven't)!!! Good luck though!

debt consolidation is not always a good thing. the gist of them is getting the companies you owe money to to write off a portion of your debt. that write off gets reported to the credit bureus on your credit history & it really doesn't help you.

see if you financial institution has any kind of financial planner & then meet with them to see what your best options are.

Most of the time you can do exactly what those companies do with a little research and a bit of work and/or haggling. It will also be free to do it that way and won't mess with your credit as much.

You can call companies and have them work with you. There are calculators online that you can plug in all your cards/debt, the interest rate, amount of debt, etc and it will tell you the fastest way to pay them off. It also prints out a chart that shows how much to pay each bill each month so that they are paid off the fastest and the cheapest way to do it too. You can call and say that you were offered a lowered rate through _________ Bank and want to know if they will match it. You can call and ask them about promotional offers. Cut up all the cards you have and quit using them too... debt consolidation won't work if you keep racking up the debt (learned this the hard way about 10 years ago :mrgreen). Find little ways to make extra money and put it directly on the debt (secret shopping, you getting a job or someone getting a part time second job, sell stuff on Ebay, find jobs working from home, babysit, etc).

I personally wouldn't go with a debt consolidation company myself, but I know it works for some people too.

Good luck!!

Thanks ladies!!!
Dh and I are going through all of our bills and we were actually surprised to find out we dont owe as much as we thought we did sooo that means we will be doing a lot of budgeting and skimming on a lot of things and hopefully within time we will be debt free. Thanks so much.

We spoke to all our creditors and set up agreements with them that we would pay X amount every month and they would lower our interest rate. The amount we pay every month is higher then the minimum payment and they get their money... it takes a fair amount of leg work but you can do it!! I would stay away from a debt consolidation loan...

Thanks ladies!!!
Dh and I are going through all of our bills and we were actually surprised to find out we dont owe as much as we thought we did sooo that means we will be doing a lot of budgeting and skimming on a lot of things and hopefully within time we will be debt free. Thanks so much.

That's great! Here's one of those calculators... you can do different plans, like "pay off my debt by _______" or "minimum payment debt pay-off" or "if I put ________ money each month towards debt, when will it be paid off". It really gives you a good idea of the best route to take and what cards to pay off first (usually the ones with the highest interest).

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/debtplanner/debtplanner.jsp

That's great! Here's one of those calculators... you can do different plans, like "pay off my debt by _______" or "minimum payment debt pay-off" or "if I put ________ money each month towards debt, when will it be paid off". It really gives you a good idea of the best route to take and what cards to pay off first (usually the ones with the highest interest).

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/debtplanner/debtplanner.jsp


Thanks :D

I found that the mytotalmoneymakeover.com is totally worth the money we paid for it. I think there is a 30 day free trial though but it teaches you how to snowball and shows you how long it will take you to be debt free

I strongly do NOT reccomend this, it will only screw you over more in the end

debt consolidation is not always a good thing. the gist of them is getting the companies you owe money to to write off a portion of your debt. that write off gets reported to the credit bureus on your credit history & it really doesn't help you.

see if you financial institution has any kind of financial planner & then meet with them to see what your best options are.

:agree Go see the family assistance office onbase too, they can give you help on budgetting, they should also have classes that will help you too.

As others above said, you can do this on your own. However, there is one catch whether you do this on your own or with others. You need to cut up ALL your credit cards. No more debt, no more spending. If you don't have the cash, you can't buy it. Period.
Good luck though with which ever way you choose!!!

debt consolidation is not always a good thing. the gist of them is getting the companies you owe money to to write off a portion of your debt. that write off gets reported to the credit bureus on your credit history & it really doesn't help you.

see if you financial institution has any kind of financial planner & then meet with them to see what your best options are.


your credit does not get affected good or bad if you do debt consolidation