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10. Not having a plan in case of emergency
A lot of people cut their budgets very close.  If you have you money portioned out precisely for your regular expenditures and you haven’t left anything in the budget for emergencies, how will you pay for repairs if your car breaks down?  If your house suddenly needs repair?  If you have emergency medical bills not covered by your insurance?  It is important to make sure you have a plan to cover emergency spending.  If that means cutting things out of your regular budget that may not really be necessary, make sure you do that.

9.  Spending money on luxury items you don’t need
This one should be obvious, but a lot of us violate this simple rule anyway.  When you see a new car, an article of brand-name clothing or piece of electronics equipment, ask yourself a couple of questions.  1) Is there money in my budget for this? And 2) Do I really need this?  If it’s an impulse buy, odds are first answer is no.  The second answer is probably no in any event.  Think about whether you’d rather have the item or financial stability.  

8.  Buying extravagant gifts for friends and family
This is basically the same as the previous item on this list.  The difference is that some people have a problem not with buying things for themselves, but with buying things for others.  Selflessness is commendable, but it doesn’t have to be as expensive as you might be making it.  It’s not going to do your friends and family any good for you to go bankrupt buying them extravagant birthday presents.

7.  Letting small expenditures add up
If your money is disappearing every month and you can’t figure out where it’s going, odds are you’re not keeping track of minor expenditures.  Say you take a trip to the grocery store to pick up a gallon of milk for three dollars.  While you’re there you pick up some ice cream, maybe a twelve pack of soda.  You spend three dollars on candy for the kids in the checkout line.  Swing through a drive-through on the way home to get some food.  Why not get the large for only a few cents more?   Each of these items individually may not be very significant, but by the time you get home, you may have spent $30-$40 during you trip out for some milk.  If these sound like the kind of expenditures you might make without keeping track, that’s probably where your money is going.

6.  Not saving money
If despite your best efforts you find yourself owing more money than you expected, it can be a huge relief to realize you have some money saved up that can help gt you out of trouble.  Try putting a percentage of every paycheck into a savings account you never touch.  If something you didn’t expect rears up and you have to pay a lot of money, you may find that you can take care of it without declaring bankruptcy.

5.  Not keeping track of your funds
How much money do you currently have in your checking account?  How about your savings?  What have you put on your credit card in the past week?  If you don’t know the answer to all three of these questions, you’re probably going to wind up overspending.

4. Putting too much on your credit card
Credit card debt is a serious problem in this country.  One main reason is that people treat them as free money without really planning how they will pay off the money they put on them.  Another is that people don’t think about the interest rate they will have to pay on purchases on their credit card.  If you are making a purchase on credit that you could pay in cash, it may be better to use cash than to risk interest rates running away from you.

3. Letting late fees build up
Almost everyone is late with a bill from time to time.  What can really kill you is being late with your bills so often that late fees and surcharges start to build up.  Before long, the late fees you pay every month may be as large as any of your other bills.

2.  Ignoring bills
This should be obvious, but some people simply don’t take action.  If you don’t pay your creditors, they are within their rights to take collection action against you.  Most of them, however are willing to be lenient if you will simply talk to them.  A lot of companies will allow you extensions if you need them as long as you talk to them in time.  Give it a try.

1.  Spending more than you earn
Everything else on this list is derived from this one simple rule:  Know how much you make, and spend less than that.  It’s sounds simple, but it can fell complicated.  Once you start keeping track of you earnings and expenses, however, you’ll probably be surprised at how easy it becomes.

Debt Settlement / Debt Consolidation Help / Debt Settlement Services

In this tough economy, when every dollar counts, it is crucial to learn how to do credit repair yourself. Each and every day, thousands of desperate people are needlessly running to credit repair agencies spending hundreds, even thousands of dollars trying to get their credit up to par.

But it really isn’t that difficult at all to repair credit yourself if you know the basic things that most credit repair services would otherwise do for you for a fee.

If you aren’t aware of those simple actions, here are 5 quick and easy steps to do credit repair yourself.

1. Access a copy of your credit report – you are entitled to a copy of your credit report for free once a year. You can access it in the mail, by phone, or even online. Although you get this free credit report, be sure to also get your credit scores along with your report, as this is the foundation for doing credit repair for yourself.

2. Check your credit report for errors – this is one of the biggest factors that credit repair agencies bank on – the mistakes that can you easy remove yourself while you’re in the process of credit repair. Look for wrong addresses, wrong social security numbers, accounts with balances that you’ve already paid off, and even accounts with late payments that were actually made on time.

3. Negotiate account payoffs – here’s another area that you are typically charged for by credit repair agencies which you can avoid by doing the credit repair yourself. All you have to do is call your creditors on collection or past due accounts and ask them to settle with you. Just let them know that you will pay off the balance, but that you are only able to pay a certain amount. If the creditor agrees, you have just saved a few hundred dollars and you now have a zero balance on that account.

4. Raise your credit limits – you may be asking yourself, “How can raising your credit limits help when you are doing credit repair yourself?” The magic about this is that 30 percent of your credit score is directly impacted by the balance on your account compared to the limit on that account. So there is only two ways to change this aspect of your credit score. Either you pay down the balance or you raise up the credit limit. Either can give you an equal result when doing credit repair yourself.

5. Continue monitoring your credit score – here’s where most people miss it big time. They take the initial actions to repair their credit themselves, but then they never follow up to be certain that those actions really helped their credit scores. That’s the pitfall of doing credit repair yourself; you may not have a good system for following through until you get the results in your credit that you are looking for. The best tool to use here is a calendar and simply putting reminders every one to two months to check your credit report and credit scores again.

As you can see, these are all simple steps that will guide you along the way to do the credit repair yourself. If you can do these 5 simple steps, then you have just saved yourself hundreds of dollars by not having others do it for you.

Considering Credit Repair

Credit repair is on many people’s minds these days. Lender’s everywhere have clamped down on their lending guidelines. A significant number of people who had no problem getting financing even one year ago are discovering there are no options available to them today. More and more people are turning to credit repair to optimize their credit scores. If you are considering starting a credit repair effort you may be wondering if you should attempt it on your own, or hire a credit repair service to manage the process. It’s worth considering.

Measure the Complexity

There can be great satisfaction from undertaking a task and completing it successfully. Many people would rather repair their own automobile than hire a mechanic. Do it yourself opportunities are everywhere and range from simple tasks like preparing your own dinner to more complex jobs like building your own home. How much do you want to undertake? How much time do you have? Are you up to the job? Whatever the project, you should consider the complexity before deciding.

It Can be Done

Do it yourself credit repair is manageable, but it may be more complicated than you think. Given the enormous importance of your credit you owe it to yourself to examine the road ahead before embarking on your journey. You do not want to find yourself half way to the goal and unable to continue. Let’s take a few minutes and examine the credit repair road map.

Be Prepared

The first objective of credit repair is to make your credit reports as error-free as possible. Cleaning up your credit report is a unique task and involves understanding the language of the credit bureaus and the body of law that governs them. Without proper knowledge your efforts will fail. This is not an obstacle to your credit repair success, but like so many other do-it-yourself jobs you must make some effort before beginning.

More Than Meets the Eye

Many people make the mistake of thinking that credit repair is as simple as looking for unfamiliar information and asking the offending credit bureau to correct it. In fact, the vast majority of credit reporting errors will look completely familiar but still should not be present on your credit report as a matter of law. For example, let’s look at the chain of events that occur when a consumer defaults on a credit card.

A Credit Repair Case Study

If you were to cease payments on a credit card you would legally be in default on the day you missed your first scheduled payment. Typically, the creditor will turn the account over to a collector as soon as you are 180 days behind, and for accounting purposes, write off the bad debt. The collector, after meeting the legal notice obligations will report the debt to the credit bureaus, creating a new derogatory account on your report. If the collector fails to collect they are likely to resell the account to another collector who will repeat the process yet again, and so on. All of these events are based on your original legitimate failure to pay, yet is it now likely that a series of serious reporting errors have occurred. All of which can be cleaned up with a bit of knowledgeable credit repair. Let’s look.

The Issues Add Up

If you were to examine your credit report after the above events took place you would probably see three derogatory items on your report. The first would be the original creditor reporting your default along with a past due balance, the second would be the original collector, still reporting your collection, and the third would be the new collector reporting the same account again. Two of these derogatory items are erroneous.

Hidden Credit Repair Opportunities

It’s time for credit repair. Once a creditor sells a defaulted account to a collector they are no longer supposed to report a past due balance. This can be removed with a little credit repair effort. And a collector who no longer owns a debt is supposed to withdraw the reporting from your credit report altogether. Ditto on the removal. Eliminating these two errors alone can have a dramatic impact on your credit score.

Make Your Choice

The point being that these types of errors are clearly generated from genuine events and hence will be familiar, yet have no proper business on your credit report. Credit repair is very detail oriented and must be done in a patient and informed manner. If you are going to attempt the process on your own, please take the time to educate yourself. Otherwise, you may consider hiring a credit repair professional to manage the job on your behalf. Think carefully and decide wisely. You can succeed. Good luck!

Copyright © 2008 Ian Webber. All Content. All Rights Reserved.

It’s no secret that Americans are struggling financially. Massive layoffs, inflation, unaffordable healthcare, skyrocketing gas prices and hiked-up interest rates on credit card accounts are plunging millions of consumers to the brink of bankruptcy. However, many of the would-be bankrupt are turning to a less drastic solution to their debt problems: debt settlement.

A Super-Short History of Debt Settlement

Debt settlement is nothing new. It’s simply an agreement between two parties to settle a debt for less than the outstanding balance. Lenders have been doing this for hundreds of years, but the modern American banking industry started formalizing the practice after many of their customers starting falling behind in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These banks setup separate departments with specially-trained negotiators who contacted delinquent customers and offered them a lower pay-off amount to fully settle an overdue account.

Shortly afterward, entrepreneurs set up companies to help negotiate the best possible terms for financially distressed consumers trying to settle their debts. This marked the birth of the modern debt settlement industry. Thousands upon thousands of consumers flocked to debt settlement websites seeking more information and enrollment into a debt settlement program and debt settlement’s popularity as a bankruptcy alternative continues to grow.

There’s good reason for debt settlement’s popularity. For some, it can be the fastest and least expensive form of debt relief besides bankruptcy. According to most debt settlement company and information websites, a consumer may be able to settle all settlement-eligible debts for less than the full outstanding balance in less than three years.

Is Debt Settlement Right For You?

If you are struggling with your finances and looking down the cold barrel of bankruptcy, you should investigate debt settlement. However, debt settlement is not for everyone.  So, you should try to fully understand how it works as well as the benefits and drawbacks of this debt relief option before enrolling into a debt settlement program or attempting to negotiate your own settlements. Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you gain this understanding.

1. Can I repay my debts?

If you can repay all of your debts in full, then you should. Debt settlement is only meant for people who are financially unable to fully repay their debts but who might be able to repay debts if the outstanding balances are reduced.

2. Am I experiencing a financial difficulty?

Not wanting to repay your debts is not a good reason to enter into debt negotiations and creditors often take financial hardships into consideration during negotiations. These hardships can include unemployment, loss of income, unexpected medical bills, illness or death in the family and divorce.

3. What kind of debts do I need to settle?

Debt settlement only works for unsecured debt, such as credit card accounts, medical debts and maybe some department store cards and other personal debts. Lenders historically do not negotiate or settle secured debts, such as home loans, automobile loans, student loans and other loans secured with collateral.

4. Can I save up and set aside some money each month?

While unable to fully repay your debts, you should be financially able to at least pay back a portion of your debts if you can save up and set aside some money each month. This amount should be less than the minimum monthly payments required by your creditors (if you can comfortable pay your minimum monthly payments, then debt settlement may not be right for you). However, even saving up and consistently setting aside this smaller amount each month will add up to a sum that you may be able to offer as a compromised payoff to settle a debt. It may take months, but if you are consistent and patient the funds will build up.

5. Can you function with a budget?

Being able to save up and set aside funds to pay off settlements will require you to operate within a tight budget. If you are not financially disciplined, then you should start learning how to be. Pursuing debt settlement is an honorable way to resolve a tough financial situation, but it does require discipline — and this means budgeting.

6. How much do I care about credit?

The debt settlement process can be damaging to your credit. This is because the process results in missed payments and accounts often go into charge-off before being settled. If you prize your credit score more than being debt-free, then you should consider getting a second or third job so you can fully repay all your debts and skip the debt settlement option (assuming you can keep this up for several years until all your debts are paid). Otherwise, be aware that negative marks can remain on your credit report for up to seven years (except for bankruptcy, which can stay on your credit report for up to ten years). However, as the negative mark gets older, it has less impact on your credit score.

7. Do I want to avoid bankruptcy?

Debt settlement is really about helping you repay your debts based on your limited financial ability and keeping you out of bankruptcy, assuming you want to avoid bankruptcy. This is important, because some people don’t mind the 10-year stain on their credit or the fact that they won’t be able to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy again for another eight years. Some people may not have a house they are trying desperately to save or don’t have to deal with the new provisions of the bankruptcy law that are designed to keep some people from filing bankruptcy. However, if the thought of filing bankruptcy doesn’t sit well with you and you are struggling to get by, then debt settlement might be just what you need.

8. Can I separate myself emotionally from my debts?

If you pursue debt settlement, your creditors are not going to be happy with you because they want you to pay all of your debt, plus interest, plus fees and plus whatever other finance charges they can dream up. You might end up getting calls from debt collectors and some debt collectors can be downright nasty. They often use guilt to get consumer to pay debts, even if that consumers doesn’t owe the debt or if the consumer doesn’t have the ability to pay. So, consumers pursuing debt settlement need to disassociate themselves emotionally from their debts, read up on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and be vigilant about their goal to be debt-free.

9. Can I be patient?

We live in a culture of instant gratification. We expect our food to be prepared before we put the lids on our fountain drinks. Our mail has to absolutely be there overnight and we want our pizza in 30 minutes or less. Debt settlement doesn’t work this way. It will most likely take several months before you save up and set aside enough funds to start offering settlements to a creditor and it may take weeks or even months of negotiations before a creditor agrees.

If you pursue debt settlement, you have options. There are many debt settlement companies to choose from and even law firms that will negotiate your debt settlements for you. However, you should definitely investigate any company you consider, whether or not they are a professional service company or a law firm. These companies will charge you a fee for their services, so be sure to compare how they charge to make sure you are getting the best deal. Also check with the Better Business Bureau to see how each company handles complaints. You should also only deal with companies associated with industry organizations, such as The Association of Settlement Companies (TASC) and US Organizations for Bankruptcy Alternatives (USOBA).

Of course, you can always negotiate debt settlements on your own. All you need is the right information and there are kits you can purchase to guide you through the process. Just do a search for “diy debt settlement kit” or “do-it-yourself debt settlement kit” and you should find an affordable kit that will show you how to settle your own debts without spending hundreds or thousands of dollars in professional debt settlement service fees.

Ultimately, how you resolve your debt issues is up to you. If you are in debt up to your eyeballs and struggling to make ends meet, then you should do something. Debt doesn’t sit; it grows with interest and fees and every dollar you owe in interest is a dollar you don’t have to pay towards rent, mortgage, food, education or family vacations. For your own personal and financial wellbeing, there’s nothing like being debt-free.