The only way a "do it yourself" plan works is if you can afford to pay large chunks of your balance off at a time... and face it, if you could do that, you wouldn't be in debt in the first place.Debt Consolidation
Consolidating your debt into a single low-interest monthly payment can save you thousands of dollars and speed the process of paying off debts.
Debt Settlement / Negotiation
Through debt settlement / negotiation, lots of people have debts totaling thousands of dollars and are still able to save a good amount of money to settle their debts successfully while avoiding bankruptcy and restoring their credit ratings in a faster period of time.
Consumer Credit Counseling Services (CCCS)
It is interesting to note that nonprofit credit counseling agencies have historically received the majority of their funding from CREDITORS. It can be argued that its their responsability to coach you into repaying as much of your debt back as possible. Basically these organizations work entirely for your creditors, not to mention Consumer credit counseling has a 75% dropout rate.
Bankruptcy
5 Negative Effects among the many.
- You will give up control of your assets to the court.
- There is a stigma associated with bankruptcy. It is commonly viewed as failure and weakness.
- Chapter 7 can be reported for 10 years, and a Chapter 13 for 7 years.
- Your bankruptcy is part of the public record. Anyone will be able find out you filed for bankruptcy
- For the rest of your life, you'll have to answer yes to the question "Have you ever filed bankruptcy?" on applications, forever reminding you of the pain of your decision.
