Struggling to juggle your debts?

People sometimes ignore debt. They bury their head in the sand. Don’t be like them, read our advice on efficiently managing (and hopefully eventually eliminating) your debt. Improve your financial health!

Struggling to juggle your debts?

If you are in debt, that means you owe money to one or more creditor(s). It can be really daunting, stressful, onerous, and time-consuming to owe money to lots of lenders. You owe the “principal” and the “interest” of whatever you have borrowed which has made your household debt. Household debt is the total of what the adults in a household owe across their shared debt of the mortgage, loans and/or credit cards.

IS A STUDENT LOAN INCLUDED IN HOUSEHOLD DEBT?

For those who have attended university, student loans can be a significant portion of personal debt; however, they are regulated differently to other debt. They’re means tested so you only have to repay when your income is at a certain threshold.

WHAT ARE THE OPTIONS AVAILABLE IF I OWE LOTS OF SMALL DEBTS?

There are a few options including:

  • debt settlement negotiation
  • debt counselling
  • debt consolidation
  • personal bankruptcy

DEBT SETTLEMENT NEGOTIATION?

If you have debt, some lenders can be sympathetic with your position and can reduce the overall burden. They have the ability to apply a number of options including reduction of your interest rate or applying a repayment holiday. For example, a repayment holiday means you’re not required to make any repayments for a set period of time agreed with your lender. They’re generally granted when you’ve had a temporary change of circumstances, such as unemployment, maternity, or unexpected expenditures.

It’s always worth calling your creditors and asking if there’s anything they can do for you.

DEBT COUNSELLING?

You as an individual and a debtor can be helped, by choosing to enrol in debt counselling. You are educated on budgeting, money management and are taught many different tools to help you reduce and hopefully eliminate your debt.

There are many different agencies that offer this service throughout the UK. They can also act on your behalf when negotiating your debt. It’s worth making sure you choose the right agency as not all of them are not-for-profit, and so the rates vary wildly.

DEBT CONSOLIDATION?

Mr Financial recommends that it may be easiest to consider debt consolidation. Usually, this would mean you take out a single personal loan (can be secured or unsecured but it’s usually applied as a secured loan against a property) to settle all the smaller debts you have with different lenders. Then you have one single monthly payment to make, rather than lots of small ones.

As with any loan, you will be able to pay off all or part of your loan early, although as ever, Mr Financial urges you to do your research and conduct due diligence as some lenders have early payment charges. There are many sites out there to help you find the right path to debt consolidation.

PERSONAL BANKRUPTCY?

If you are so far in debt that you really can’t see a way to ever repay, you may consider declaring personal bankruptcy. It writes off most of your unsecured debt which gives you a clean slate. However, there are some serious repercussions of declaring yourself bankrupt.

The risks include potentially losing your assets like your house and/or your car, losing your job if you work in law or finance, very negatively impacting your credit score for 6 years, and you’re on the public register.

The plus points of bankruptcy include the clean slate, which means your creditors cannot pursue you anymore and you will not receive any more communication from them.

Mr Financial doesn’t want to see its readers declare bankruptcy, so do take a look at all of our advice pages and if you do take on debt of any kind, make sure you know how to manage it. Our site is here to help you and avoid that situation ever arising.

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