Warning Signs That Your Debt Is Becoming Unmanageable
This is a guest post from Trisha Wagner of DestroyDebt.com. If you would like to submit your article for review, feel free to email us at milkyourmoney@gmail.com. She writes regularly on the topics of getting out of debt and personal finance. She also a nice forum that merits visiting.
Do you have control over your debt or is your debt controlling you? Many people don’t realize how serious their financial situation is until it is too late. While avoiding debt completely may be an unreasonable goal since most people don’t have the resources to pay cash for their homes or automobiles, having a manageable debt load should not be beyond your reach.
Look at the following statements and ask yourself how they apply to you:
- You don’t have money available to put into savings.
- You carry a balance on your credit card accounts and only pay the minimum payment each month.
- You make your payment only to turn around and continue charging purchases.
- You are near, at or over your credit limit.
- You are making payments to credit card accounts or other bills after the due date.
- You use cash advances from your credit card to pay other bills.
- You do not know how much debt you currently have.
- You have overdrawn or bounced checks from your checking account.
- You are denied credit.
- You lie to your family or loved ones about how much debt you have.
- You have had your credit card declined when attempting to make a purchase.
- You are getting calls from debt collectors.
Do any or all of the above situations apply to your financial situation? If you have experienced these scenarios you are definitely in over your head and it is time to seek help immediately. Many people know that they have too much debt but often times have difficulty admitting it, even to themselves. Unfortunately in this case ignoring the problem will not make it go away and confronting your debt with an aggressive debt reduction plan is the only option to bring relief – both financially and emotionally.
You’ve accepted that you are deep in debt and acknowledge you must take action immediately to reverse the damage to your finances. What is your next step?
If you don’t already do this you will need to begin tracking your expenses. This includes your monthly bills, utilities, mortgage, car note, debt payment and living expenses. Are there any areas you can cut costs? If it’s possible now would be the time to make lifestyle changes that would free up any money to apply toward debt repayment.
Many people realize too late that they have crossed the line from debt they can handle themselves to having a level of debt that requires more serious measures. This occurs when people go over their expenses and income and discover there is no money left over to increase debt payments. They also have already cut out all unnecessary expenses. If this sounds familiar it might be time to consider getting help from a professional debt relief company. Before committing to any program take the time to research and triple check any company you are considering working with. The last thing you want to deal with at this stage of the game is signing on with a bogus debt reduction company and learning months down the road that you have lost even more money to a company that never provided the promised services.
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Comments
IMO, another big issue right now is the possibility of a very high interest rate period once the trillions of dollars that are being pumped into the economy start stimulating a recovery. I think we could easily see 10%+ rates before too terribly wrong, so now is the time to be extremely concerned about any debt that has a variable rate.
[...] MilkYourMoney presents a guest post from Trisha Wagner of DestroyDebt.com listing warning signs that your debt is becoming unmanageable [...]