Are You Paying Off Debt With More Debt?
As the credit crunch takes hold, increasing numbers of people are relying on further credit to pay off their existing debts, according to a new report. Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity, reported that more than four million households have used credit cards for rent or mortgage payments in the past year.
Debtsolutions company thinkmoney.com has warned people in debt to be careful about the way they tackle their debts. A debt consolidation loan can be ideal if you are looking to replace your existing debts with lower monthly payments and simplify your finances, says a spokesperson for the company.
But paying off your debts with credit cards is not advisable, since the interest is very high, and many people soon find they are unable to keep up.
Danger of snowballing debt
A lot of people we speak to have got themselves into long-running cycles of debt, says the spokesperson for thinkmoney.com. People realise they cant pay back their existing debt, so they take out a new loan or credit card to pay for it often with a high interest rate.
The trouble with this is that the interest can grow on some types of credit, so the debt becomes more expensive, meaning the debt snowballs over time.
It can get to the point where the debt becomes simply too big to pay back. Thats especially a danger with the ongoing credit crunch.
What options are there?
We would advise anyone struggling with debt to face their problems head-on, rather than draw out the problem by using credit cards and overdrafts to pay off debts, the spokesperson for thinkmoney.com continues. There are plenty of debt solutions out there designed to help people out of this kind of situation.
If you have a number of debts that you are struggling to pay off, a debt consolidation loan might be the best option. This replaces all your existing debts with one manageable monthly payment, and allows you to lower your repayments by paying debts back over a longer period of time. The interest rate is usually lower than other forms of credit, especially credit cards.
Since you will be repaying the debt for longer, the total interest you repay in the long run might be higher, but its a lot better than taking out loan after loan to cover mounting monthly debt repayments.
One of the key points is affordability – making sure that once you have consolidated your debts into this new loan, you are left with enough spare income each month to avoid relying on credit and store cards and theres no chance of falling back into the same cycle of debt.
But there are alternatives for people whose debts have simply grown too big for example, an IVA (Individual Voluntary Arrangement). An IVA is usually for people with over 15,000 of debt, says the spokesperson. It sets out monthly payments based on how much you can afford, usually for 5 years, after which the rest of the debt is written off. Many creditors will accept this if they can see they will get more money back than from other options, such as bankruptcy.
You will technically not be repaying the full amount, but your debt will be considered settled once the IVA is successfully completed.

February 20, 2012 

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