Reprinted from RLRouse
The process of eliminating or reducing the amount of your debt load is called debt relief. You may have trouble keeping all of your payments up to date. Or perhaps you have collection agencies contacting you at work and placing your job in danger.
If so, here are a few debt relief strategies that can help reduce your stress level:
- Contact your creditors and explain your financial situation. Then, ask for a reduction in your interest charges, a moratorium on the interest charges, or perhaps an opportunity to skip one or more payments.
- Apply an extra amount to each monthly payment on your smallest account balance to make a concerted effort to pay it off early. One less bill to pay makes it easier to pay the rest of them.
- Sell any unwanted or unused items that you may have around the house and use the proceeds to pay down your smallest debt(s).
- If you still have trouble making your monthly payments after trying the above strategies, you might consider filing bankruptcy, but only as a last resort.
Filing bankruptcy will provide immediate and complete debt relief, but it will also stay on your credit record for ten years, making it virtually impossible to get a new loan (which is not necessarily a bad thing).
Always keep one thing in mind: You aren’t alone if you are in need of debt relief! Millions of Americans from all walks of life and all income levels find themselves in financial trouble at times, and you’re entitled to the very same types of debt relief as everyone else.