Richard Lowe Jr - Help! My Debt is Making Me Miserable: Tips to help you Confront Your Finances, Reduce Your Expenses and Increase Your Income

Help! My Debt is Making Me Miserable

Tips to help you Confront Your Finances, Reduce Your Expenses and Increase Your Income

Personal Finance Series #1

Richard G Lowe Jr.

www.richardlowe.com

Published by The Writing King

www.thewritingking.com

Help! My Debt is Making Me Miserable

Copyright 2016 by Richard G Lowe, Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means electronic, mechanical, photographic (photocopying), recording, or otherwise without prior permission in writing from the author.

Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for damages that may result from the use of information contained within.

Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owners trademark.

Cover Artist: theamateurzone

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016919688

ASIN: B01M1AKGPM

ISBN: 978-1-943517-65-7 (Hardcover)

ISBN: 978-1-943517-64-0 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-943517-63-3 (eBook)

Table of Contents

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I am not a lawyer, a credit counselor, or an accountant. Depending on your situation, you should seek the help of qualified professionals as needed before taking any of the steps that Ive outlined or discussed in this book.

It seems these days that everyone gets themselves in debt in one way or another. In modern times its difficult not to accumulate some debt, if only for the purchase of a house or car.

In actuality, there is nothing wrong with carrying a bit of debt through your life. Few have the luxury of being able to afford to purchase a house with cash , or to buy a car out right without using credit. In fact, most people cant buy furniture or a refrigerator or other large purchases without using some kind of credit.

Not buying anything on credit actually, puts you at a disadvantage, and makes it difficult to get credit if you need it. Its hard to prove that you are credit worthy if you dont have any credit record at all.

Thats why it is a good idea to purchase a car, some furniture, or a home on credit. This establishes you, assuming you keep up the payments, as someone who can be trusted with credit. If you pay regularly without being late, youll build a record as a person who can be trusted. This can take several years, but its worth the effort.

Even carrying a credit card or two, and using them now and again, is not a problem as long as you keep it under control. Its wise to keep a general credit card, gas card, and perhaps a store credit card with you.

The best practice is to be able to pay off the entire balance of all your credit cards each month. Most people cant or dont do that, of course, but you should be able to pay them off within a reasonable amount of time, say within six months or a year.

Credit becomes a problem if you have difficulty making the payments each month. There are also other measures that are used to determine when it becomes an issue, various ratios of debt to how much you make in a year.

You know you are beginning to have a problem with your debt if any of the following are true.

If your credit cards are maxed out, meaning they are at or even over the credit limit.

If your credit cards have high interest rates, generally anything double-digit.

If you are denied credit because you have too much credit.

If you are unable to make payments because you dont have enough income.

If youre using one credit card to pay another.

If you have a lot of credit but dont have any savings.

If youre only making the minimum payments on your cards each month.

If you are late in paying your bills, credit cards, mortgage, rent, utilities and anything else.

If youre bouncing checks or overdrawing your checking account.

If youre having to choose between paying rent, utilities, groceries, bills, car payments and the mortgage each month.

If youre receiving harassing phone calls from your creditors.

If you are unwilling to talk to your friends and your family about how much debt you really have, or if youre lying to them about it.

If youre worried about your debt.

You cant pay off your credit cards within a year using your income.

Sometimes we get deep into debt because we are trying to set ourselves up for the future. For example, taking out student loans to get through college, or furnishing your new house using a credit card or two.

Of course, there are those people who are addicted to shopping and purchasing things. Every shiny new object that passes their way must be bought, and it has to be purchased now.

Then there are those who have addictions such as gambling, alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, and so forth. They use their credit to fund their addictions until they can no longer do so. When this happens, the addictions often force them to use less reputable ways to get money, including loan sharks, criminal behaviors, or selling themselves for unwholesome activities.

Ive known people, as well, who were simply addicted to using credit cards. It wasnt that they wanted things, so much as they enjoyed using credit cards. Once they purchased the objects, they lost interest, either losing them or selling them. The objective was to buy on credit.

Medical problems can force a family deep into debt, even given such programs as Obamacare and other health insurance programs. This debt can come on suddenly, and is extended directly by hospitals and doctors rather than being put on credit cards. Sometimes these debts can force a family into bankruptcy whether they like it or not.

In all these cases, the first step is recognizing that you have a problem. You have to acknowledge that you are in debt well beyond your means to pay it back within a year, two years, a decade, or even more. If you have addictions that are driving that debt, then you have an even larger problem to confront.

The place to start is to acknowledge that you have a debt problem. The second step is to be willing to do what you need to do to resolve that problem.

You may need to earn more income by working a second or even a third job, or starting a business from home. You could also talk to a consumer credit counseling service and come to an agreement with your creditors about how to repay your debt. Bankruptcy is always an option, although it should be done as a last resort.

Obviously, if you have addictions or bad habits driving the debt, then you may need to confront them as well. This can be made even more difficult if those addictions or bad habits involved a family member. It can be very difficult to solve addictions for other people, especially if they are not willing to confront them themselves.

Once you acknowledge that youre in debt, that the problem is affecting your life, and that you want to correct it, you need to take action.

The first thing to do is to take stock of your finances. Its a simple matter of making a spreadsheet, whether on paper or on a computer, of what money you have coming in and what money you have going out on a monthly basis. Money coming in from a credit card through a cash advance is not counted as money coming in.