Debt Clear Direct

by Center for American Progress Action Fund

Eliminate Credit Card Debt – Save Money

Americans get more and more in debt each year. Debt begins to pile up from credit cards and loans. This high interest debt can quickly turn into a seemingly insurmountable problem forcing you to live from paycheck to paycheck. The tips listed below will help you stop the urge to splurge and enable you to actually start saving money every month.

*Create a monthly budget and stick to it. This way you can keep track of where your money is actually going and apply it to where it is needed. Putting the numbers down on paper will show you just where all your money is going!

*Keep a journal for a week of everything you spend money on. Keep a running tally of how much you spend for a week. Then multiply this times twelve and you have your total for roughly three months.

*Get your last three months of pay stubs and determine your average monthly income by adding the totals, after taxes, together.

Then gather three months of bills, add them up and divide by three to calculate your monthly fixed expenses such as rent or mortgage, utilities and phone, car payment, insurance and student loan payments. Add together three months of other monthly expenses, including groceries, clothing, credit card expenses, medical bills and the total from your weekly journal above. Divide by three and add the result to your monthly expense total.

*Evaluate your expenses. What can you cut back on? That morning cup of coffee can be skipped if you make your own at home. Small priced expenses add up and burden us. Choose one or two things you can skip from your journal and then add one item to the list every week.

*Make more meals at home. Take-out is not only fattening, but it is expensive. Pack your own lunch to take to work. Make meals ahead of time and freeze them if you don’t have time to cook a dinner every night. Keep in mind that not every meal needs to be a feast. Have a salad, sandwich, or other small meal for dinners, instead of the five-course meal.

*Set up a savings plan such as a passbook account, certificate of deposit (CD) or individual retirement account (IRA), and begin making regular deposits. Check with your local bank to see what the best option is for you.

*Cut up all credit cards except one (you need one for emergencies). Transfer all credit card debt to that one card (make sure its the card with the lowest interest!). One bill is easier to manage, especially at low-interest.

*Overpay your minimum credit card payments as much as possible. A good rule to follow is to add whatever your interest fee is for the month to your minimum payment. This way you will be paying on top of your interest and your balance can actually go down instead of just being marginally affected.

*Realize that things come up in life that are completely unexpected and unplanned for. Car problems or health problems can and will occur at the moment you think youre ahead. Keep plugging away at debt and stick to your budget as much as possible.

*Watch less T.V. (no home shopping channels) and no buying online, no catalogs. All of these increase the temptation to spend your hard-earned money!

*Buy generic, clip coupons, pinch those pennies!!! (roll them, too!)

*Cook large amounts of food at a time from scratch, as well as several different meals. Pre-packaged stuff costs a lot more and it’s not as healthy, anyway. Freeze portions for meals later, during the week or when things in the pantry are scarce. This will also save time, and energy.

*Grow your own! Create a garden! Not only is it fun for the whole family, you can save a lot of money on food.

Once you have paid off most of your debt, you will begin to feel more in control and can start pooling more of your money into savings, college and retirement funds. Try to have an emergency fund that could carry your household for at least two months in case your income stops. That way, your debt will not begin to pile up again.

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by Mad African!: (Broken Sword)

Five Ways To Stay Debt-Free

So if the bills/debt are building up, you’re living paycheck to paycheck, and there is no relief in sight, follow this advice to dig yourself out – one debt at a time.

1. Pay more than the minimum – Many loans are set up so that the minimum payment goes mostly toward the interest. If you can afford it, triple up on those minimum payments. Ex. “if you have $ 10,000 in credit card debt, u r probably paying 15% in interest, and make minimum payments, it will take 25 years to pay off that debt”. You don’t want to be a slave to credit card companies. Good Book: Zero Debt for College Grads author Lynnette Khalfani.

2. Create a credit card payment strategy – One place to start, after making a budget, is to pay off the card with the lowest balance first. If you make a few sacrifies, like skipping happy hour or making one less $ 200 purchase (think gadgets and shoes) per month, those savings can be applied toward the debt.

The same strategy works with lines of credit and personal loans, too. To fight temptation, opt-out of receiving mail-order credit card solicitations by calling 888-5-OPTOUT.

3. Stop spending – NOW!! – As you pay off your credit cards, don’t cancel them. Instead, take all of the credit cards out of your wallet and put them in a jar half full with water. Put jar in the freezer. The idea is to keep the cards out of your pockets and limit impulse shopping. Also, by putting it in the freezer it is not in your pocket, but you have it in a safe place in case you need it in an emergency. While your cards are put away, negotiate with creditors to get better rates. You have to be in good standing to get the most out of this deal, which means continuing to pay your bills on time.

4.

Shop for better rates – When you get a great opportunity for a lower interest rate, go for it. Instead of the 14% or 22% interest rate you’re currently paying, you can transfer to a card that offers you a 6% or 9% rate to save hundreds or thousands over the course of the year. Shop for better rates and take advantage of offers provided by bank, credit union, or other lending institutions that offer low rates for transfer. But don’t bounce around to much because doing so results in too many credit inquiries, which can lower your credit score. Also consider debt consolidation, which is taking several debts and converting them into one monthly payment.

5. Manage your own finances – Whether sharing finances or flying solo, you should always know three things about your debt: (I) How much you have (II) How much it’s costing you, and (III) How to deal with it. If you don’t, it will always cost more than you think and take even longer to pay off. The debt may not go away overnight, but with discipline and by following these few steps, it will shrink a lot sooner.

www.therealcashflowceo.com – Anthony Manganiello, author of the Debt-FREE Millionaire, interviewed by Pat Robertson. He explains that it is possible to become the millionaire you have to potential to become.
Video Rating: 5 / 5

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by Blyzz

Some Solutions to Dire Debt Problems

If you are beyond living paycheck to paycheck and having trouble making your payments month after month, you are having severe personal finance problems. You are now in need of some credit card debt solutions. I’d like to concentrate on some solutions that work great if you are behind in your payments are experiencing late fees and other fees. If this sounds like you, you may want to consider these options: credit card debt settlements or debt counseling.

Budget
With all situations you must create a realistic budget. It is the start to all credit card debt solutions. You need to know where your money is going and what you have each month to spend and apply to your goal. You start by categorizing your expenses, figure out your monthly income and sticking to it. It is assumed for these strategies that your expenses are more than your income which means you need to make hard decisions and need to include other income sources (part-time job, selling on eBay or work-at-home incomes).

But, to eliminate the problem you need to establish extra to apply to your debt.

Credit Card Settlement
Another example of good credit card debt solutions is settlement. The extra I was implying to be was decreasing your credit card responsibility. Settlement simple terms means to negotiate a settlement with the credit card companies to get your balance reduced to a manageable amount. The late fees, finance charges and over the limit fees you have accumulated can be negotiated to get them all removed from your account. Typically, these three things will amount to 30-40 percent of the total balance. That will reduce your responsibility and should bring your payments well within your newly established budget.

This needs to be applied to you credit card payoff goal. This option for credit card debt solutions will affect your credit rating in the beginning but when you payments are made on time and your debt is reduced you credit rating will reflect the on-timely payments and will increase.

Credit Counseling
If your situation is beyond what you can deal with and you need to create a plan for yourself, this is a great option. They’re many reputable professionals out there for you to choose from. First, find the company that you can work with that has a reputable program. Then, you need to truly commit to what they plan for your situation. This part of your credit card debt solutions will take about an hour and will advise you on managing your money and debts, help you develop a budget, and develop a personalized plan to solve your money problems.

If you decide to work through your debt problem and choose NOT to file for bankruptcy as a solution, these are excellent solutions you will be proud of. Solutions that will build long lasting character with lessons you will not repeat. These lessons are those that build your own being, always feeling good that you chose to deal with your debt and getting out of it, not passing it on to others with bankruptcy; after all you made it, you deal with it. It is hard BUT extremely rewarding as a life long lesson not to be repeated!

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by Steve Rhodes

The Principleof A Debt-free Life
Most of us dream about being wealthy. Most of us are not. Conventional wisdom and dreams about winning lotteries have not helped us reach this goal.To reach millionaire status, you have to either be aggressive about savings or aggressive about entrepreneurship. Which one do you think you -and much of the worlds population – are most suited for?

The key to ensuring that you are able to save and invest enough money is moderation; be realistic and live below your means. This sounds like a no-brainer, but given the amount of debt many of us have and our abysmal national savings rate, it is not. It is a simple concept but one that requires shifting your priorities and values from spending to saving.Having a great salary does not guarantee wealth. If your income is not sufficient to cover your expenses, you obviously will not have money to save and invest.

The reality many of us do not want to confront is that how much we spend is more important than how much we earn. A person can easily earn a six-figure salary, yet paradoxically be in debt. Americans earn more than most of the worlds population, yet we are also in debt more than most of the planets citizens. It is not hard to spend more than you earn, and if you do, you will get caught in the desperate cycle of living paycheck to paycheck and confronting the specter of mounting debt and braying creditors – which is a black hole that you should avoid at all costs.

Living in debt is more expensive than living debt-free. While there are good debts, such as education or buying a house, most of us are wallowing in bad debt. Going into debt for consumer items is bad debtbecause most consumables depreciate rapidly once you buy them. Furthermore, your debt keeps rising when you finance consumable purchases with a credit card. How? Well, many people get into the trap of paying the minimum amount owed on their credit card, meaning they are basically paying the interest and not the principal (the actual purchase price) of what they are buying. As a result, their debt keeps rising, especially if they get into the habit of buying regularly on credit and not paying the full amount owed each month.

So what do you do when you really need the laptop or 45-inch flat-screen television and you have already spent your paycheck on mortgage repayments, groceries, gas, kids clothes, and various other payments? For an answer, as well as more information on personal finance, savings, debt, credit, and wealth management please read Debt Zero: The Financial Mediterranean Diet by Edward Prados.

We got hooked onto Dave Ramsey and decided to get crazy and got out of debt. As of 5-5-07 we are officially debt free!!

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You then wonder how did I charge so much, why am I in the debt situation I am in. You may ask yourself do I need debt relief, well the credit card companies have kept up their end of the deal by giving you all the purchasing power you wanted and the problem is how are you going to pay them back. Getting debt relief may be the only way, the first step towards debt relief is recognizing that you may have a debt problem. What you can do is ask yourself these simple questions below. If you answer yes to even one of them, chances are you may need debt relief. Debt Consolidation may be the answer to this problem

Are you finding that you are draining your savings account in order to support the debts you may have? If yes then you may be spending more than your income can withstand.

Do you pay only the minimum on your credit card bills each month? If the minimum monthly payment is all you can afford then you are most definitely in over your head and debt relief is what you need. Debt Consolidation may be your answer to your financial situation you may be in. One low monthly payment with low interest charges may be able to help you.

Are you over your credit limit or nearing the credit limit on your credit cards? To spend money is is not a bad thing, but remember you may have high interest rates and have to pay off the debts you accumulated on the credit cards if you don’t pay off them monthly.

Do you find that you often bounce or float checks?This means you issue a check in hopes that you will have the funds to cover the payment by the time the check is cashed. Floating or bouncing checks can mean that you are having some financial problems and are living paycheck to paycheck.

Are you depending on taking out cash advances to pay your credit card debt? This issue is a serious one. This may mean your current income may not be enough to handle your spending habits. This is a pattern that can send you spiraling out of control and ending up in serious debt. Getting debt relief via our debt consolidation program may be your only hope to assist you with the debt problems you may have.

First thing is recognizing that you may be in a financial situation that you can not handle. Charging on credit cards can be like an illness. Your first step is to recognize your symptoms and try to find an immediate cure…Debt Relief Via Debt Consolidation. The longer you wait, the worse your financial condition will become. Be smart and responsible.

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