Debt Management: Managing a Budget to Manage Debts

HOW TO MANAGE YOUR DEBTS: BUDGET MANAGEMENT FOR DEBT MANAGING

(Based on author’s site www.geocities.com/dbtshw)

Creditors could use you and your family at pleasure for 60 days, at one time, then keep or sell you to another at auction as slaves!..

Many in debt do not know how to avoid or ease the pain of innocence of debt management…

But credit we need, be it as money loans, or by easy-payments or hire purchase.

Many with debt problems are innocent of debt management. Not only credit one needs, but,  indeed, one often, if can be reasonably managed, has wisdom considerations on the lines of (as the Cypriot thinker-writer-poet teacher Orhan Seyfi Ari put it) “I am no so rich as to afford cheap things” -and these have to do with personal finance. That is a money problem to many who have no or little knowledge of personal budgeting and debt management.

Advice on managing debt problems is often source-specific, not of general use ~psychology, politics, law, commerce, each, advises from its own perspective -in practice one needs in all respect relevant basic advice in coping with debt.

The following seeks to combine these ~it is easy to learn how to manage debt, cope with it, and then avoid debt and problems -here is how:-

>> First, know these –it helps manage your debt, and do not panic if civil debts are causing you anxiety –there are ways of managing debt.

1. Normally you may not be imprisoned for debts unless concealing funds -you may complain to the police if the creditor harasses or tells your employer…

2. Creditors may not repossess goods you have bought on credit or by loan -unless hire purchase goods of which remains unpaid still a portion of it specified generally by law yet…

3. If you think that the price was extortionate you can take the creditor to court -if you can show so the court may reduce your debt and you owe less…

4. Creditors must show that help in debt management, in paying your debt was considered ~many accept small regular payments if realistic -some may freeze the interest on the debt…

5. If a creditor sells your debt to a non-bona-fide party you may choose not to deal with other than the creditor’s own staff or lawyers in respect of that debt… Indeed the creditor having by such sale of your debt lost title to it, you may be able lawfully to deem your debt erased if you can show the party to whom it has been sold not to be a bona-fide party.

6. Debts up to sums specified by law may be arbitrated at courts, often at no cost -if you need it free legal representation may be available…

7. If you lose in court, repaying the debt in time given you by law protects and keeps your credit rating from being adversely affected…

8. If you can not manage to repay a debt and worse comes to worst, you may ask the court to pay by instalments or, if you can satisfy that you will be able to manage the debt and keep up with them, by lower instalments -if circumstances change or you can not manage the instalment you may ask again to give you more time or lower the instalment more…

9. If you cannot manage debt repayments and bailiffs got involved, lawfully may not be confiscated any essentials -e.g., beds, bedding, clothes, cookers, tables, chairs (or anything that you may need to continue earning your living)…

(Also, beware: administrative or clerical errors are known to have resulted in the form of demand for bailiff notice fee and under payment of seizure of goods for credit amounts –i.e. if one has overpaid by additional instalment and the credit balance has been mistaken for short payment.)

10. Credit agencies by law must give you details of your credit rating, and if you have been successful in managing your debt after a judgment against you and have satisfied it, credit rating agencies must correct their records.

(Laws to do with debt vary among countries and states –it helps to enquire)

>> Second, do the following: if you need to budget differently and fear that you may not manage to repay debts as expected, ensure to contact your creditors for more time or lower instalments.

1. Work out your net income –debt management begins with knowing what you have regularly coming in…

2. Work out your essential outgoings -rent, mortgage, electricity, gas, food, toiletry, child-care, telephone, fares, car, in Britain the TV license fee, and the like…

3. Calculate your disposable income -what’s left for other things…

4. Trying not to upset your budget for essentials, see what you can offer who…

5. Write to your creditors and explain your circumstances and the above and make an offer, e.g., time-wise, or instalments-wise ~keep copies of all letters, records of payments -and where sent.

(If taken to court you will need to show all of the details above ~if you can not sort these out, you may ask the county court to do so for you -that is not bankruptcy but last-resort administration: it is the court managing you debt by way of you regularly paying to the court what it decides -for all of your creditors, for the court to pay each creditor separately on your behalf)

>> At the meanwhile, and later, you need to budget, to manage not to get into debt… You do not want your house or valuables sold, nor your employer ordered to deduct from your pay ~nor the worry, the anxiety affecting your wellbeing.

(A branch of humanistic psychology, indeed, considers financial wellbeing to be a basic essential to one’s proper functioning.)

There is a way to avoid such risks…

Change your money habits -this is not so difficult to do…

If you often have debts or debt management problems, list them, look for a pattern…

You may be compulsive

(A test advertisement in an experiment by the New York Times offered “nothing” for $1.- -many responded, most of the sent money and ordered it).

You may not be adequately money conscious -money goes, you don’t know how or where…

You may be insufficiently organized, overlooking, delaying and allowing repayments to accumulate (delayed instalments may add to any interest payable, and may involve a charge)…

You may be panicky in debt management ~running to ‘loan-sharks’ and trying to manage and repay your debts by debts by loans to be repaid themselves, for ever paying the interest on them –with interest charged on interest too and often amounting to several times what you borrowed.

(If you do need to borrow, consider joining a credit union ~their loans are interest free.)

There is a tried, tested and proven psychological technique to help manage your debts and become debt-free…

The rewards awareness technique ~it is not difficult and works in managing your debts by overcoming the negativity opposing changing your money habits.

Keep a daily record of what you spent, what is left, if you wasted or could have saved.

Be conscious, especially, of what you could have saved but wasted -and haw the waste accumulates and what it adds up to ~it is important in managing debt, changing money habits

(This, in experiments carried out, not only with group support, but also at lone individual level, it has been enormously, and popularly as to the ease of getting into the habit of it, successful).

Think of this: It will constantly keep you aware of your income and out-goings -habitually ~it will enable you to manage your debts and make free of debt problems and risks involved in debt.

This is as much a budget management technique as a debt management and essential.

I will also boost your self respect and the pride and confidence in yourself to show to yourself and those around you that you can be, are, in charge of your money affairs more, better and easier.

It is also fun ~give it a try -do try it.

The author has a website at: http://www.geocities.com/eoa_uk