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6 Best Practices For Debt Consolidation

Debt Consolidation

You might require financial assistance to meet your needs at some point in life. It might be to acquire an investment or make small payments like groceries. Sometimes, you might get used to the assistance; until you wake up to a pile of debts one day. 

During this time, lenders are blasting your phone, asking you to repay the loan. It’s a situation that can be frustrating and add to your stress. There are various solutions for such a scenario, and one of them is debt consolidation. 

Debt consolidation entails taking out a loan to pay off several debts, making payment manageable. How do you ensure that this solution is a success? It’d help to practice the following:

1) Seek Expert Advice

Getting around debt is challenging for most people. It’s always a question of where to begin. In most cases, the issue is with the source of a debt consolidation loan and how you’ll approach financial lenders.  

If you find yourself in a situation of worry and not knowing what to do, consider seeking expert advice. It can come from financial institutions or businesses offering debt consolidation services.   

The experts will assess your debt and advise you on the best way to handle it. You’ll even get debt consolidation options to choose from. As you seek advice from experts, ensure they are reliable and have experience handling situations similar to yours.  

2) Understand Your Debt

One of the best ways of solving a problem is getting to its root. You want to adopt this approach as you opt for debt consolidation.  

It’d help to list your debt, from the smallest to the biggest, writing down the interest rates you’re paying for each. You also want to check the terms and conditions for late payments, including the amount you’ll pay as penalties. Some terms include your account being forwarded to debt collectors for recovery. 

Analyzing your debt will assist you in figuring out the small loans you can pay in relation to the debt consolidation loan you’ll receive. It also makes you conscious of your debt, prompting you to want to pay it off as soon as possible.

3) Work With A Budget

Budgets play an essential role when it comes to financial matters. They assist you in achieving financial goals and paying your debt consolidation loan.  

Once you’ve cleared all your loans with debt consolidation, you only have one loan to pay, which is manageable. 

Here, it’s best to create a budget: list your current expenditure against your income. Are you spending money on necessary things? If there’s wastage, eliminate it and gear it towards debt repayment.  

It’s important to acknowledge that many people create budgets, but few would stick to them. Please don’t be one of them; religiously stick to it, and you’ll reap the benefits by being debt-free within no time. Consider having your partner or friend keep you accountable for your budget. Doing so increases the chances of following through with it.

Debt Consolidation

4) Increase Your Payments

You probably devised a payment strategy when you opted for debt consolidation as your solution to handling your obligation—most, if not all, strategies are geared towards making payments in installments.  

It goes without saying that the higher your payments, the faster you’ll pay off your debt. Therefore, please increase the amount you’ve set aside for installments. If you previously made monthly contributions of USD$700, increase this to USD$1000. Continue increasing the payments over time, especially if your income increases.  

5) Negotiate With The Lender

As previously stated, debt can take a toll on you, which shouldn’t be the case. You can ease the burden by negotiating with your lender regarding your loan.  

Start by telling them of your efforts to eliminate your debt, with debt consolidation as an example. During the negotiation, you can request them to adjust your loan’s terms and conditions, maybe by reducing the interest rates.  

Suppose you’ve defaulted on some payments. You can request them to waive the penalties, with the promise to keep up with all future payments. Ensure you fulfill the new agreement you’ve made with the lender. It puts you in their good books, which can be beneficial in the future.

6) Avoid Using Credit Cards

Most people today have acquired credit cards to make their everyday payments. You want to avoid using your credit cards to make payments. Remember, you’re working towards a debt-free life through debt consolidation, and a credit card is a part of taking more debt.  

You’re likely to end up in a cycle of debt, which can be frustrating. It’d help to cut up your credit cards to forget they exist. Alternatively, give them to a trusted party to hold them for you to avoid the temptation of swiping them as you go grocery shopping and as you pay off your debt consolidation loan.

Conclusion

Debt consolidation is a life saver to your debt situation. However, it’ll only do this if you approach it correctly, putting the right practices into place. The discussion above has highlighted the practices to adopt. Implementing them is in your best interest; you’ll be on the road to a debt-free life.

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