Desperate To Get Out of Debt

Debt is in a terribly ugly word these days. Generally, one in seven Americans owns a credit card, and credit card companies make it easier and easier for you to get yourself into more debt by tacking on hidden fees and increasing interest rates. If you are aware of your money problems, you probably know that after calculating your monthly cash inflows and outflows, you often find yourself overspent. You try to stick to a budget, but you only make a certain amount of money per month. The letters you receive in the mail keep telling you that you must pay a greater amount to your bills than you make per month.

How is that possible? Looking at such a ratio could probably throw the average person who cares about their bills into a nervous break down. Do you need to start filling out an application for a third or fourth job? Should you consider bankruptcy? No. You can pay your bills late. Don’t despair. “Late” is not a dirty word. Delinquency is another thing all together. Late is just late.

Roll credit card payments, student loan payments, and cell phone payments over to the next month. You don’t even have to worry about your bills piling up and eventually snowballing on you. Some people call this rollover technique “juggling.” You can call it being money savvy, and you can use this technique until you get yourself together and become able to pay your bills on time.

Are you out of college? Are you looking for a job or considering getting an internship? If you think it is impossible to get one with all of the debt that you have, this method is for you.

First you need to realize which bills can wait and which ones need to be paid now. For instance, car insurance companies can sometimes take up to a month or two before they send you a notice that you are past due. After they send you that notice, they often give you another month before they will send you a cancellation notice. Then, you still have about ten to fifteen more days before you have to worry about anything being cancelled. Therefore, it’s possible to push you car insurance payment back a whole two months if you do not have the funds to pay by the due date.

Generally, any payment on credit cards bills must be at least thirty days late before you are reported to credit card bureaus. After thirty days, you should give your credit card companies a call and see if you are in danger of being reported. Sometimes, you have up to two months before your credit card companies will relate anything to the credit bureaus.

If you have consolidated your student loans, there are other options besides deferment. Many of the companies that consolidate loans have grace periods. You can often make a loan payment up to about fifteen days late before you receive any fees.

Also, if you tend to make online payments by waking up in the morning and quickly pressing a “submit” button, you may want to consider reading your mail or perhaps reading all the fine print on the company website. Often, you may receive offers. You may even be able to miss a payment this month on your line of credit in exchange for paying just a small fee.

You can do all of these things and still come out with a good credit score. You just have to be very organized. Make sure you know when thirty days is up. Call the credit card companies ahead of time if you want to know when you are in danger of being reported and make sure you check your mail often for cancellation and past due notices. This way you will not get reported because you made a mistake and did not pay attention.

These techniques should give you all of the time you need to complete an internship or just get yourself together in general. Just remember that you don’t want to be doing this forever. Therefore, in the meantime come up with a plan to start paying your credit cards completely off and getting the rest of your debt in order so that you are not a slave to the small payments you are asked to make each month. Surely, you can somehow arrive at having a good-looking credit report.