What is Debt Consolidation

Debt consolidation means taking out one loan to pay off many others that secures a lower interest rate and a fixed interest rate or for ease of servicing one loan only. Generally, it involves a secured loan against an asset that serves as collateral most probably a house. In such case a mortgage is secured against the house. Since, by collateralizing the asset owner agrees to allow the forced sale of the asset to pay back the loan. All this involves minor chances of risk to the lender so the interest rate offered is lower. Sometimes a heavy discount is provided by the debt consolidation companies on the amount of the loan. The decision to consolidate must be taken carefully as consolidation affects the ability of the debtor to discharge debts in bankruptcy. As compared to an unsecured loan from a bank a debt payment by credit card is more beneficial as credit cards carry much large interest rate. Debtors those having property whether it may be a car or home get a lower rate through a secured loan by using their property as collateral. As a result of this the total interest and the cash flow paid towards the debt is lower which ensures the debt to be paid off sooner incurring less interest. Companies that are engaged in these debt relief programs are well-versed in dealing with various types of creditors, like mortgage companies, banks, credit card companies etc.

They are the great rescuer as they interact with creditors to reduce the amount of money you owe to them and can even convince creditors to cut back on the interest rate on your previous borrowings, thereby assisting you in finding your way out of this debt-ridden situation.

The Article is written by consolidationdebts.co.uk/ providing consolidation debt and debt loan consolidation Services. Visit for more information on consolidationdebts.co.uk/Products & Services___________________________Copyright information This article is free for reproduction but must be reproduced in its entirety, including live links & this copyright statement must be included. Visit consolidationdebts.co.uk/ for more services!

How Much Money Can Debt Consolidation Save

Debt consolidation can work in one of two ways: the first is that you get a lump sum to pay off all your credit cards and the slate is wiped clean and you just repay the loan. The second is that the debt consolidation company will contact your creditors and negotiate a new rate of interest with them and you simply pay the debt consolidation company and they take care of paying your creditors.

If we take a basic example we can work out how much the potential savings are each month. If a person has $25,000 of credit card debt (which unfortunately isnt unreasonable) at a rate of 18% per annum and they are paying $500 a month then it will take nearly 8 years to pay off the debt and they will have paid over $21,000 in interest – almost as much as the original debt!

A debt consolidation company could offer a rate of 12% per annum for six years in which case the repayment is reduced slightly to $488 per month and the amount of interest paid is just over $10,000. Even when the charges and other fees are added its unlikely to be anywhere near as much as the credit card debt.

However, there might also be some scenarios where a debt consolidation loan ends up costing more than the original debt due to the long repayment periods. Take this example:

A person has a $15,000 5 year unsecured loan at 9% and a $10,000 2 year unsecured loan at 15%. The $15,000 loan costs $311 per month and the $10,000 loan costs $484 a month for a total monthly repayment of $795.

A consolidated loan company says they can reduce the rate to 8% over 7 years so you are only paying $390 a month. This means you have to pay $7,676 in interest over this period. However, if you continued to pay off the loans at the original rates you would only have to pay $5,276 in interest. The $2,000 difference is one of the ways the debt consolidation companies make their money.

Debt consolidation could be a tradeoff between lowering your monthly outgoings but increasing the length of time you remain in debt and increase the amount you have to repay so before you go ahead and sign up to a debt consolidation company make sure you have calculated exactly how much you could be saving.

Also remember that if you are consolidating your debt in to a loan then it is usually secured on your home which could be repossessed if you fail to meet the monthly repayments.

Seek Debt Consolidation To Relieve Burdens of Debt

You’re in quite a damaging financial position. You’ve taken out far too many loans and the result is constant worrying about the numerous repayments due at the end of each month. Perpetually, you’ve got creditors calling you – repeatedly so and seemingly to no end – harassing you and even threatening you with the prospect of legal notices. And of course, all this insistence weighs down on you ten-fold raising stress levels through the roof. Anxiety about your current financial well-being and financial future is severe as well; it seems as if it’s taking a strong grip on your life, constricting any notion of financial freedom.

But, you don’t want that, not in the least, right? You’re looking for breathing room, for change, certain avenues to alleviate your financial pains and lessen some of the weight you’re toting around. If you search hard enough, solutions will be uncovered. One such resolution to ease your financial burden is the utilization of debt consolidation loans.

Easing Debt Burdens With Debt Consolidation

Imagine the process of debt consolidation as, well, a means to consolidate or bring debt together, cramming it into one compact ball. Picture the following when comprehending debt consolidation: two extended arms stretching widely and outward joining at the hands forming a circle around distributed debt. Now, envision this arm-enclosed circle gathering scattered debts, clumping them together tightly as the arms constrict, closing them in in a unified fashion. This image might suggest debt is being hugged, but rather, it’s something quite the opposite. If anything, debt here is squeezed until it is no more.

The Art of Acting As One

Debt consolidation acts as a means to unite all high interest debt into one, concentrated area to make repayment processes easier to cope with. And despite the clear differences between the various loans’ interest rates you’ve accrued over time due to varied purposes, through debt consolidation these loans will still be gathered and held together under one exclusive payment. Better still, after combining multiple loans into a single consolidated loan, the flexibility of choosing a repayment plan with reduced rates is there, with a decreased and consistent interest rate no less. And this most certainly would suit anyone’s already debt-heavy wallet.

Advantages of Consolidating Debt

The major benefit here is that the words “numerous” and “debts” are no longer linked together. Debt here is now positioned in one contained area, practically fenced in, which makes keeping track of payments per month a manageable and less clustered task. As it is, keeping on top of paying numerous, spread out debts from various sources is not easy and can get confusing at times. Yet, under a debt consolidation loan, all debt can be dealt with through a single loan, one both affordable and easily controllable.

Other than a reduced and easy to manage monthly payment, debt consolidation provides it’s candidates much more in terms of assets. Consolidating is on it’s own a cheaper alternative for your high interest debt -both secured and unsecured- as lower interest rates are initiated, and thus, allowing for a significant reduction in outgoing totals per month. This means a fatter wallet and saving more in the long run. Also, if your credit rating is visibly questionable to creditors, debt consolidation may be what’s needed to repair and strengthen that weak credit standing.

Overall, seeking the financial alleviation of debt consolidation may just be the solution you’ve been searching for, both to make your life less stressful and your financial situation less of a concern. Make your financial state more of a freedom rather than a burden.

Dealing with Scam Artist Pretending To Be IRS Debt Collectors

In 2004, the IRS was given the authority to use third party debt collectors to hunt down taxes owed by delinquent taxpayers. Scam artists knew an opportunity when they saw one.

Dealing with Scam Artist Pretending To Be IRS Debt Collectors

In an effort to track down delinquent taxpayers, the federal government gave the IRS the right to hire private debt collectors in 2004. You know, those annoying people that call during dinner. The reason for this change in policy actually made some sense. With as much information as the IRS is forced to deal with, it simply took forever for the IRS to start collection actions. By using the third parties, the IRS would be able to get the process moving without taking up employee time.

As you might imagine, the private tax debt collector program sounded like a good idea, but proved to be problematic. There were two primary problems. First, the legitimate debt collectors were threatening taxpayers. Second, scam artists started posing as debt collectors to collect money from nave tax collectors or perform identify theft on them. It is this second problem that we focus on here.

The central problem with the new debt collector program is how does a taxpayer know if they are dealing with a legitimate company or a scam artist trying to rip them off? Well, the IRS has instituted a new program in an effort to clarify matters. Here are the highlights:

1. If the IRS is going to use a private debt collector to come after you, the agency will first send you a letter indicating as much. The name of the company handling the debt collection will be included in the letter. If you do not receive this letter, ignore or report any parties claiming to be debt collectors to the IRS immediately. Play along and get their contact information so the IRS can hammer them.

2. When dealing with the debt collector, you will eventually reach a point where you write a check. The check should be written to the United States Treasury. If the debt collector instructs you to write it to any other name, they are scam artists and you should report them immediately. There is no exception to this rule. All payments are made to the United States Treasury, just like if you had actually paid your taxes on time!

Scam artists are very creative when it comes to thinking up schemes for ripping people off. Understand and stick to the following guidelines and you can foil them.

Richard A. Chapo is with BusinessTaxRecovery.com – providing information on taxes.

Ways To Be Debt Free Without Bankruptcy

It can be frighteningly easy to get into debt, as many millions of people have found to their cost over the last few years. Easy access to cheap credit over the last decade or so, along with a generational shift in attitudes to borrowing, has left huge numbers of people struggling to get by and keep their debt repayments on track.

Of course, the unhappy fact is that for some people their debt problems are simply too pressing and no solution can be realistically found, and for these unfortunate people bankruptcy is often the only option.

However, there are ways to get debt free without resorting to such drastic action, although none of them are quick or easy, no matter what the abundance of advertisements may insist.

The most common method of dealing with debts is to take out a consolidation loan. The basic strategy is to take out enough cheap credit to pay off your existing more expensive debts, leaving you to concentrate on repaying this single new debt, for which you should be having to pay less each month than the total of your previous repayments. Obviously, this is not a quick route to being debt free, especially if your loan was taken out over a long term, but it’s a popular way to relieve the pressure of unaffordable debts. So long as you stick to the repayments, and avoid racking up additional debt, you will (eventually) clear your debt.

A more proactive way of clearing your debts is to use the snowball method, where you determine to make the minimum repayments on all your debts each month, with any extra cash left over being concentrated on repaying just one of your debts. Once this single debt is cleared, you transfer your previous minimum repayment on it to the next debt in the line, as well as keeping up the repayments you’ve been making all along. Once this debt is cleared, you transfer the entire repayment onto the next one, and so on down the line.

The beauty of this method is that your total monthly debt payments will stay the same, but the power of your repayments will grow and grow as your debt gets smaller, and you also have the encouragement of seeing your debts get cleared one by one.

A more drastic move is to enter into a debt management program. This is basically an admission that you can’t cope with your debts, and a plea for negotiation with your creditors. You should be able to come to some sort of arrangement to spread your debts over a longer term, reduce the interest rate you’re being charged, or otherwise ease the burden by restructuring your finances. You can either take this process on yourself, or consult a debt charity or debt management agency who will handle it for you.

The final option is known as an IVA or Individual Voluntary Arrangement, which is actually a form of insolvency. It is in some ways similar to a debt management program in that you negotiate a new repayment deal with your creditors, but the crucial difference is that your new agreement is legally binding and must be signed off by a judge.

Under an IVA, you don’t necessarily have to clear all of your debt, but so long as you stick to the agreement you’ve made in court, any remaining debt will be written off after the five year term of the IVA. Although this is one of the fastest methods of becoming debt free, it’s not a trivial course to take and will impact on your financial future from many, many years, not least through the near destruction of your credit rating.