Financial Tips

How to Save Money : Credit Counselors Help

CREDIT COUNSELORS Provides Help With Financial Problems

At some point in everyone's life, the time comes when you need a little help. Whether you're having health problems and need a doctor's professional care, or you just need a neighbor to watch your children while you deal with a crisis, it's a comforting feeling to know that the help you need is there when you need it.

For Consumer Credit Counseling Service(CCCS) an accredited NFCC agency, this assistance largely consists of providing guidance to individuals and families who have questions about their finances. How do I correct problems on my credit report? How do I prepare to buy a house? How do I create a budget? Unfortunately, all these questions represent essential skills and knowledge that is rarely taught in schools.

It's unfortunate that most young adults are sent into the world without these skills. We have education for just about everything and would never dream of sending a doctor into surgery without a tremendous amount of training and practice. But when it comes to money skills, society's attitude is to just throw people out there and assume they'll figure it out. For a lot of people, figuring it out means making mistakes that could haunt you for years down the road.

That's one of the main reasons CREDIT COUNSELORS exists - to provide guidance and education to people who aren't sure how to reach their financial goals. In many cases, the people we work with don't even have a grasp of what their goals are. Our education programs, which are provided at no cost, cover such topics as Understanding Your Credit Report, Getting Out of Debt, and Creating an Effective Budget.

One of the most critical services we provide at CREDIT COUNSELORS, however, is our Debt Management Program (DMP). Many of the families we see every day are people who, because they never learned some important money management skills, found themselves with overwhelming debt, usually on credit cards.

We hear stories every day at CREDIT COUNSELORS from people who have dug themselves into a deep hole, sometimes over $30,000 in credit card debt. At that point, they struggle to make the minimum monthly payments, and unfortunately, only a very small percentage of the money they send is applied to the balance. That means they get absolutely nothing in return for the money they send in.

Our Debt Management Program is designed to help you dig out of that debt, without declaring bankruptcy, which can stay on your record for ten years. With the DMP, the first step is to make sure you are no longer charging money to credit cards. From this point on, you will only spend money you actually have. Then CREDIT COUNSELORS intervenes with the credit card company to minimize the finance charges and work out a reasonable repayment program with all your creditors. You then simply make a monthly payment to CREDIT COUNSELORS and the money is distributed for you to your creditors according to the repayment agreement.

One of the most important parts of this agreement is that the creditors must stop any collection activities toward you, as long as you are keeping up your end of the agreement. That means no more phone calls, no more letters, no more harassment, giving you the peace of mind to get on with your life.

For more information on the Debt Management Program, contact Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS) at 1-800-REPAY DEBT.