Debt Relief Basics

The conundrum that most of our visitors face is a vexing one. On the one hand, they would of course like to pay more than the minimum payments on their credit cards because, without doing so, they will remain mired in debt for decades. On the other hand, outrageous interest rates make the minimum payments so high that paying anything more is financially inconceivable. The primary culprits behind this seemingly inescapable predicament are unreasonable interest rates, and these are precisely what debt relief targets in order to alleviate consumers' debt burden. Before you even enroll with your consolidation firm, they will have negotiated interest rates with nearly all major creditors in the U.S. These interest rates are not widely known; but they are available to those in debt consolidation programs. Once you consolidate, your old interest rates are replaced with these new rates and your payments become more affordable as a result. The overarching goal of this strategy is to enable you to get out of debt quickly without straining your budget with massive payments.

Qualifying for Debt Relief

Though debt relief is an effective tool, not everyone will make a good candidate for a debt consolidation program. Consolidation firms all have different qualification requirements for their customers, so you should inquire about them once you have selected the company that's right for you. Typically, though, consolidation companies tend to require at least the following of their customers:

• Have at least $5,000 of unsecured debt
• Must be relatively current on payments
• Understand that all credit cards included in consolidation process must be canceled
• Are not presently enrolled in a consolidation program

Step-by-Step Guide to Consolidation

We've broken the debt relief or debt consolidation process down into a step-by-step guide to help you understand how it works. Here is what the process involves:

1. Complete the free debt consultation. The free debt consultation is used as an evaluation tool to assess where you are with your debt and how consolidation can best help you.
2. Your debt is consolidated. The interest rates that your consolidation firm has negotiated with your creditors will be applied to your debts. A new payment is calculated, and your debts are bundled into this single monthly payment.
3. Each month, you pay your consolidation service. Rather than making payments to a bevy of different creditors, you pay your consolidation service once a month on a date the you get to select at the beginning of the process.
4. The consolidation firm pays your creditors. The distribution of your payment to your various creditors is handled by the consolidation firm, so you most likely will never have to deal directly with your creditors again.