How to Stop the Flood of Debt from Drowning You
Debt is a problem faced by people all around the world, rich and poor alike. If you are struggling against a rising tide of debt, please do not feel as though you are alone in your struggles. People in the developed and developing nations are all struggling to make ends meet, and often feeling as though they are drowning in a sea of bills.
Debt problems can send you into a downward spiral of frustration, anxiety and even depression. You feel helpless to regain control over your financial situation. No matter how hard you try to get caught back up, it always seems that there isn't enough money to cover all your expenses. Even when you start making a little headway, it takes only one surprise expense -- vehicle trouble, plumbing problems, medical expenses -- to wash away all that progress and set you even further back. Sometimes you despair of ever seeing a future in which you're not struggling to make too few dollars go too far.
Struggling with debt can be exhausting, both mentally and physically. If you can't sleep at night because you're constantly worrying about your bills, you will soon wear yourself down to the point it affects your health.
Because your situation is not unique, there is a great deal of information available that is potentially useful to you. However, not all of it is universally applicable, and some of it may be dangerous for your particular situations. Although debt is a widespread problem, each person's debt arises from his or her own individual life situation, and the solutions for it must fit with your life. An hourly laborer who has access to overtime but who has experienced injuries that resulted in reduced income and high medical expenses will have a different set of problems and solutions from a salaryman who's gotten underwater trying to present an appearance of prosperity, who will have a different set of problems from a single mother struggling to raise several children on minimum-wage jobs and child support payments that may or may not come.
When people offer advice, listen carefully, but do not follow it blindly. Take it under advisement and think about how it would work with your personal financial situation -- your debt pattern (consumer, medical, business, etc), your income and expense patterns, and your career and health situation. If you're uncertain about taking drastic measures, don't hesitate to contact a professional and discuss matters with them. An accountant or attorney can recognize pitfalls that are often glossed over by someone who had good success following a particular course of action. Additionally, they can often suggest alternatives that may work better for your particular situation, or even know about methods and instruments that you would never have known existed.
For instance, it may be possible to negotiate with your creditors to lower your interest rates. If you can come into a lump sum of money (for instance, an insurance settlement or an income tax refund), sometimes you can negotiate a partial payment to retire the debt as if you'd paid in full. However, if you're not careful in the latter course, you can get a big surprise at tax time when the portion of your debt that was written off is treated as income. If you work with a professional, they can make sure you don't get caught by surprise and left in a worse bind, owing the Federal government instead of a private creditor.
If your situation is truly intractable, you may want to contact a bankruptcy lawyer. Although it's embarrassing to have to admit that you can't meet your obligations and never will, sometimes getting a fresh start is preferable to toiling in perpetuity just treading water in a flood of debt, trying not to drown this month, fearing that the next unexpected expense will leave you sinking like a stone.
Whatever you do, it is important that you take considered action rather than just plunging ahead to "do something" or trying to avoid the situation in hopes that it will go away. When you try to ignore money problems, they do only one thing: they get worse.
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