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Saturday, December 22, 2007

Consumer Credit Debt Consolidation - What You Need to Know

By Steve Faber


You’re constantly bombarded by ads from mortgage companies and finance companies with offers for consumer credit debt consolidation. Weather or not you should avail yourself of their services depends upon a few things. In order to make a determination if it’s right for you, there are some things you should look at. You must know what you are in debt for and the interest rates of all your debt. In addition, you need to know if it’s secured or unsecured debt.

Once you have done a debt analysis, you can determine if consumer credit debt consolidation is the proper course of action. The key thing to remember is that the majority of consumer debt consolidation programs get you a lower interest rate because they use secured debt to retire unsecured debt. Most lender view secured debt as a lower risk endeavor and thus reward creditors with a lower interest rate. In almost every case the lender will use real estate as the security for the loan. For most people real estate means their home.

You need to know that if you make a mistake they will foreclose on your home. That’s why the most important part of your debt analysis is where your dent came from. If you have a consistent pattern of spending that exceeds your income, a consumer debt consolidation loan will only prolong the inevitable. At some time in the future you will reach a point where you can no longer pay you bills, even with the lower payments afforded you by the debt consolidation loan. When that happens you will have already used the equity in your home, and have nothing left for security on an additional loan.

You should only use a consumer debt consolidation loan if you are consistently spending less than you make. If you are in debt due to an extraordinary expenditure, such as a medical bill or natural disaster, than a debt consolidation could be just what the doctor ordered. It will improve your monthly cash flow and allow you to regain a solid financial footing.

The two takeaways you should get are that a debt consolidation loan is just a financial tool to be used in certain situations. Like any other tool it isn’t the best tool for every situation. If used incorrectly it can cause more problems than it solves. Used correctly however, a consumer credit debt consolidation loan can really be a tool that helps to resolve your financial woes and get you back on your feet.

To discover how to improve your financial picture in the short term, and avoid making a dangerous financial decisions, see the bad credit refinance guidebook.

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