Have a Debt Management Plan

I’ve only had a couple of experiences with getting Personal Loans. One time we took out a personal loan to buy some items that we wanted and there was no real problem with it except having to pay it back! The other was when my daughter decided to take out a personal Loan to consolidate her bills when she finished her education. She had taken out quite a few loans during her schooling, including for her tuition and living expenses. She had gotten pretty much every credit card that had been offered her and taken out loans for even just spending money!

When she finished school she was all of the sudden overwhelmed with the number of bills she was receiving. She learned one of those lessons we all learn at some point or the other, that being, its easy to get a loan but they do eventually come due! She found herself neck deep in debt before she even had a job. I felt really bad for her, but its one of those lessons we have to learn. She needed a Debt Management Plan.

Her first reason was to cut up all her credit cards. That was good. She tried for a while to pay on each bill, but she wasn’t getting ahead because she was only paying the minimum every month. I advised her to concentrate on paying off one bill at a time. That she’d have to pay more than the minimum and to pay as much as she could on one bill to get it paid off. Then move on to the next bill and concentrate on that one until she paid it off.

She went ahead and applied for a personal Loan anyway and called me in tears several times in the process. The AMOUNT it was going to take to pay off those bills was a little staggering. I kept advising her to break it down into manageable pieces and pay off one bill at a time. That’s basically all I could tell her because that’s what has worked for me in the past. Plus, as I didn’t mind reminding her, I had TOLD her not to get all those credit cards!

I was reminded of that when I was reading this article on why its not a good idea to use a personal loan to consolidate debt. As the article points out, it has a negative affect on your credit and as she found out, can be overwhelming to have to pay off that one big bill.

Help For People With Bad Credit

If you have bad credit or less-than-perfect credit there is help for you. BadCreditOffers.com is a resource for people with bad credit. They can even help get credit cards for bad credit. They keep track of resources and keep their website updated with the latest market resources for people with bad credit.

If you are looking for auto loans, credit cards or home loans, you can find the latest high-profile companies that will work with you to help you make your purchase regardless of your credit ratings. You can compare the bad credit offerings to find the ones that best meet your needs. They are conveniently in one place which makes it much easier to compare the offers.

BadCreditOffers.com also provides you with information and resources to help you begin to rebuild your credit history and financial future.

Worrying About Identity Theft

There's been a lot of talk lately about identity theft. Sometimes I worry that I take my security about that too much for granted. I have never had a problem with it personally, so I don't think about it unless something is brought to my attention.

Recently, we have been getting bills for someone who doesn't live here. There are enough of them that I finally understood that someone was using our address to get credit cards and then spending to the limits on the cards. I sat down one afternoon and called all of the companies involved to let them know that they were being scammed and this person didn't live here. The bills stopped for a while. What has been interesting to me is now I'm getting credit offers in the same name as that person. In other words, the computers are spitting out credit offers for this person that had reneged on the bills she had run up a couple of years ago.

That whole situation got me to thinking about how easy someone can use someone else's name, address and identifying information to get credit. It would be a real problem if this person had actually used more than just our address. I went looking on the internet for information about identity theft and found some really good and informative articles at CreditLoan.

CreditLoan has a ton of information on a wide variety of financial issues. They cover issues on getting credit, fixing bad credit, mortgages, debt consolidation, bankruptcy, personal loans and much more.

I found their information on mortgages informative. I like to keep up with whether or not its a good time to refinance my mortgage, whether or not the costs of refinancing are worth the lower interest rate and the like.

That is only one small part of the information that is available at the website. They have articles, information and resources about Bankruptcy, bad credit loans, auto loans, debt consolidation and just about every other type loan you can think of.

CreditLoan offers information on loan calculations and how to get a free credit report.

Its always good to stay informed and this website certainly helps you find the resources you need to stay informed regarding your finances.