Using debt management companies

There are lots of companies out there at any given time who claim to be able to get you debt free in a number years or claim to be able to help lower the interest you’re paying from month to month. Some even claim that they’re able to stop you paying interest all together! So who are these debt management companies and what debt solutions do they really offer to the average guy in the street?
Well, having researched this a fair bit over the past few weeks, it seems that there are 2 sorts of debt management companies primarily. There are those companies who target individuals who are in serious debt and are struggling to manage the payments and there are the companies who target people with several debts from several different debtors.

The latter of the companies tends to offer consolidation as their primary debt solution. Consolidating involves getting a loan (in effect) that is big enough in total to pay off all of your existing loans and credit cards with one single payment. Consolidation loans tend to be stretched over a long period of time which subsequently leads to a high amount of interest paid on the debt. The plus side though is that the month to month payments are often low enough that you can easily meet them and seldom notice them leaving your account. Companies offering this service are definitely in for the long haul.

The other type of company are the private companies that specialise in the high end debt market. In particular, IVA’s. An IVA is what people look towards who are £15,000+ in debt, own a business and don’t particularly want to declare themselves bankrupt. This is an extremely popular sector, especially with businesses owners as it gives them the opportunity to effectively write off any interest owed on all of their debts and structure the repayment of the funds themselves over a 5 year period.

Techniques to manage your finances correctly

When it comes to financial management, in particular debt management. It’s all about numbers. The figures from your earnings, your outgoings, the interest you’re paying and even the fees you pay for the privilege of the above need to be calculated and accounted for. As most of you who have tried your had at financial management will know, collecting, collating and making sense of such data can be extremely tedious. Especially if you don’t have a degree in maths or a background as a financial analyst!

But, with that said, there is help out there to assist you in your financial management and budgeting and that help is in the form of a finance calculator. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this term, it is exactly what it sounds like, a finance application that can calculate all the figures you need to know in order to plan and manage your budget.
The finance calculator works by taking your total monthly income and deducting from it all of your planned outgoings for the month thus leaving you with a figure. That figure being your surplus cash for the month which you can allocate as you see it. Of course, most financial calculator and financial management applications on the market these days are much more complex than that, from a feature standpoint as opposed to usability. Most applications will also let you know the dates that your payments are due to leave your accounts so that you don’t fall behind and encounter late payment fees or even worse, defaults.

Using such financial management applications is extremely easy as the developers of such tools write them with the novice user in mind. The vast majority of the finance tools that are on the market are indeed written for the general public. The home user who just wants to manage their month to month income and outgoings as opposed to businesses managing multi billion dollar accounts.
If you want to set yourself a budget then try your hand at calculator your figures using a finance calculator. You will make life much eaiser on yourself I’m sure.

All You Need To Know About Debt Consolidation

If you’re considering debt consolidation, there are a few things you need to know. Firstly, you should only consolidate your debts if you’re paying too much interest from month to month on your existing credit card debt, loans and financial outgoings. By consolidating, you’re more often that not getting yourself into more debt, over a longer period of time and in effect paying more interest. On the plus side though, when you consolidate, you will only be dealing with one lender and you monthly payment will be significantly more affordable than your current, mixed payments to your existing lenders.

Most people consolidate their debts when they’re paying too much a month on their existing debts. This is often because they’ve taken on and subsequently maxed out too many credit cards and loans. One card or loan is quite easy to service, but when you have to pay similar funds out on each, each month, it can add up quickly and become extremely costly.

Of course, you don’t need to find a dedicated debt advice specialist in order to consolidate your debts. You can do it yourself if you can take a personal or secured loan out large enough to cover all of your current debt. It is important though if you do this that you don’t take the consolidation loan and make the mistake of treating yourself with a portion of it. Also, if you take out a loan to clear your credit cards, make sure you don’t fall into the trap of adding funds back onto your credit card as soon as you’ve cleared them. If you’ve gotten to the point in needing consolidation in the first place, you’ll be well advised to chop up the credit cards and stick to spending what you can afford.

What do we spend our money on?

I have always wondered if what people spend their monthly income on. What proportion of the nations wages go on their mortgages, rent, council tax, debt payments and so on? Are my outgoings on par with the rest of the country or am I over spending in a certain area that I shouldn’t be – probably. Thankfully, all my questions have now been answered due to a UK spending statistics survey conducted by Kublax, the popular online money management service.

It would appear that judging by the report that the vast amount of peoples income is indeed spend on their mortgages and rent. This isn’t too surprising. What did strike me as surprising is the fact that the second most significant payment out of the populations monthly budget is debt / loan payments. This statistic right here illustrates how much debt the UK is currently in. This makes me feel a lot better personally. Judging by these statistics, my debt outgoings a month are not really that significant.

Other surprising inclusions in the survery are how much people spend on holidays. Almost as much as their loan payments in some cases. I am sure there is a connection there.

This was a truly interesting and surprising survey by Kublax and I look forward to seeing more in the future. For those not in the know, Kublax offers a suit of financial money management software that can help manage your month to month finances and is great for budgeting and money management in general.

The Kublax software suite allows you to input your total monthly income as well as all your outgoings. It then performs a set of calculations to determine what you have to pay out and when leaving you with a monthly expenditure figure. This then subsequently gives you a surplus cash figure that you’re left with at the end of the month. Believe me, knowing what this figure is going to be in advance is a lot better than finding out how much you’re going to be left with just by chance when it comes to the end of the month!

Playing The Credit Card Game

More and more people, particularly in the United Kingdom are becoming swamped in credit card debt on top of their existing loan debt and mortgages. This might sound like a job for Debt Free Direct but there are certain steps you can also take yourself to assist in money and debt management. Credit cards in general have become notoriously easy to get accepted for and the credit limits that are offered to the general public appear to be getting higher and higher. This is great if you need the high limits for business or a single, high end purchase, but more of than not, people run their cards right up to these high limits for small, often insignificant purchases.

Once the credit card is maxed out, many just stick with paying the minimum monthly payment. If you do this, you’re going to have credit card debt for the rest of your life. Well, not quite, but almost! It is a well known fact that minimum monthly payments will only clear the interest you owe on the balance for that particular month. Only a small portion of the funds you pay will be used to clear the card balance itself. Do not make the mistake in thinking that £50, £100 or £200 you pay each month is going off your grand total, it isn’t.

What many are doing now is playing what is known as the credit card balance transfer game to combat this. What this entails is moving your maxed out balance onto a completely new credit card that has no interest or at least a much lower rate than you’re currently paying. It makes perfect sense if you think about it. If you’re paying money each month off interest on a £10,000 limit maxed out 15% APR card, you’re losing a hell of a lot of money. If you move the balance onto a card with no interest due, you can be paying the same money off each money and actually have it working towards your total amount owed. Or you can just pay the minimum amount.

Of course not everyone has the ability to get a new credit card in order to stop their interest payments. If you’re unable to do so, you might consider seeking some debt management advice from the likes of Debt Free Direct or similar.

Too Deep in Debt?

The title of this post might hit home for a select few. Debt is a very real problem in the UK and other western countries with the majority of the population carrying significant debt on an array of credit cards, personal loans and mortgage agreements. Of course having a debt portfolio is nothing new and for the most part, it doesn’t cause too many problems. In fact, having a bit of debt against your name is actually a good thing as it shows you’re what are known as a good risk. This is providing you can make the payments on your loan of course. If you have debt and don’t keep up with the payments, it could land you in a whole heap of trouble.

Unfortunately there are lots of people out there who despite having the best debt management skills and techniques and putting them into practice, they still can’t make ends meets. This could be for a variety of reasons such as job loss, health issues or even the economy as a whole. Once you get yourself into this dire situation, it’s extremely hard to get back out. That is of course without a lot of surplus cash coming your way in the form of a windfall or similar. For those people so severely in debt that they can’t consolidate or make payments on their existing terms, there are very few options.

The most popular option, especially if you’re in £15,000+ of debt is the IVA. So what is an IVA? Well, an IVA stands for an Individual Voluntary Arrangement. When you take out an IVA, it is similar to a loan. Your creditors are paid off in full and you are left with a single monthly payment that you must make each month in order to service the debt.

The IVA is a great alternative when compared to bankruptcy, as it isn’t a permanent mark on your record. It isn’t public and most importantly, it can actually help build up your credit rating to what it once was. This is providing you make all your payments each month on time of course.

Quick and Easy Loans

Payday loans online are a great way to get cash fast. If you are in need of some cash right now, then you should check into a payday loan. The great thing about these loans is that there is not a lot of paper work involved in the qualifying process. Matter of fact, there are only a few requirements that will need to be met before you can qualify. Payday loans are quick, easy, and simple.

The requirements to qualify for a payday loan are very minimal. You need a job that pays roughly around £1000 per month. This is sufficient income for a payday loan. You don’t even need to be over 18 years old. You must be able to pay back the loan with you next paycheck.

These loans are all short term loans. They were meant to be paid back quickly so that you do not accumulate a lot of interest making it difficult to afford. Payday loans are normally paid in full anywhere from 10 to 31 days. It all depends on your pay schedule. Since the amount that you can be loaned is based on one month salary, the loans are not very much. The average amount of a loan is around £100 to £1500.

You can use these loans to pay off high interest credit cards, mechanic bills, or in case of emergency. It is simple to get the money that you need to get you to your next payday. There are no credit checks, so you don’t have to worry about bad credit. Unlike if you try to qualify for a more traditional loan. You will also not have to wait weeks for the loan to be finalized. This means that you can have the money in about 24 hours. Getting the money quickly could mean less money that you will waste on late fees. You never have to worry about falling behind on your bills any time soon with payday loans.

Managing Your Credit Card Debts Successfully

If you’ve ever been in debt because of credit cards, in particular because of multiple credit cards, you’ll know how hard they are to manage. I am not talking about reviewing statements and making payments. That pretty much takes care of itself via online banking, direct debits and minimum monthly payment systems. I am of course talking about managing your credit card debts in such a way that the money you pay each month is actually going to paying off your credit card as opposed to just servicing the interest and not only that, making sure that you’re really pay as little interest as possible on your credit card debt.

Lots of people in the UK according to the various UK debt news websites suffer from credit card debt and lots of people are paying lots more money each month than they really need to. There are a few who are wise to this out there who continually move their debts playing what is known as the balance transfer game but some just sit on their debts and throw away significant funds on a month to month basis on interest alone. That same money could be used to actually clearing your credit card debt with a view of getting you debt free, eventually.

If you have credit card debt currently, do some research into what your APR figure is, how much you owe, what you’re paying each month and most importantly, how much of that monthly figure is going towards the debt itself and not just the monthly interest. If you find that you’re paying too much interest, it might be worth you switching to a credit card that has a 0 percent interest rate. You might also want to consider taking out a card with a high credit limit (if you have a good credit rating) and transferring all of your smaller card balances onto that. This will save you a lot more money than paying out fees and interest on a collection of other cards with lots of different lenders.
You can find lots of good credit card debt resources online that will teach you all about managing your balances effectively and saving money on interest.