Important Terms Of Debt Consolidation

By Author: Alisdair Cosgrove
Total Articles: 184
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Most people agree that trying to get out of debt is one of the most confusing and frustrating endeavors. Yet, there are options that can help you get out from under this burden.

In most instances, debt may be managed if you can create a working budget and curb your unnecessary spending, but not always. Big debt may require specialized approaches to bring it under control. Debt consolidation is one of them. The terms below are just a short list of terms associated with debt consolidation. If you want to get debt free, you should probably get acquainted with them.

How about starting with debt consolidation? Briefly, it is merging or consolidating all of the separate bills into one monthly payment, so you have one to pay rather than several. This process also allows you to remove late fees incurred and bring interest rates down to reasonable levels.

Next, there is unsecured debt. It is the form of debt that has no collateral. The top examples include credit cards and hospital bills. Material items such as homes, automobiles, boats, etc are not categorized as unsecured debts.

A home equity ...
... loan is a form of loan that can be obtained by homeowners by borrowing against the equity in your home. Home equity loans can be used to pay off debt or to make home improvements. It should also be understood that any improvement that that increase the value of the home may actually reduce the interest you will have pay. If the loan is used to consolidate outstanding debt, the interest rate will increase as a result.

For those who have terrible credit there is debt reduction. This term describes a process whereby you contract the services of a debt reduction company. This company would advise you to withhold payment to your creditors for up to six months. During this period, you would be saving back all the money you can in order to use to negotiate a lower repayment amount. By using these debt reduction programs you are, in effect, making your credit score worse. With this in mind, you should consider other options first.

The last term under consideration is settlement. It is meant in the context of debt consolidation to describe the decision of the creditor to close an account by accepting a certain percentage of the total outstanding debt. The bottom line is that most creditors would rather get something back than nothing at all. Settlement may best be illustrated with the case of credit cards where it is typical to accept between 30 to 70% less than the full balance. Settlement affects your credit score since the accounts you have will indicate that they were paid as agreed, which basically means non-payment.

While you begin looking around for the debt management help you need, don't forget to take your time and learn all you can about the options and terminology. Knowing these terms will better equip you find what you're looking for.
Alisdair Cosgrove loves to write about finance issues and advise on how people can save money on their personal finance outgoings and can find more of his articles at tfgi.com, offering debt relief and also great tips on debt loans. Visit TFGI today to read more of Alisdair's great articles.