Guest post: Taking care of debt on line

The following is a guest post from Jennifer Lohan of Finance Buzz for Us:

Taking care of debt online

At present, a number of debt consolidation websites are offering cost-efficient debt relief options to consumers. Debt consolidation enables you to pay off your outstanding loan balances faster with minimum adverse effects on your credit score. Having a good credit score is important to qualify for a credit card, home loan or a car loan. Currently, a slew of debt consolidation companies are working on the Internet and they are taking good care of people who are struggling with debts.

More and more people are resorting to the services offered by debt consolidation websites since they feel online consolidation companies carry a number of advantages over traditional companies.

Online debt consolidation companies help you become confident about managing your finances. When you’re combining all your high-interest bills into one manageable monthly payment, you no longer need to deal with multiple creditors each month. Reduced interest rates result in reduced monthly payments that help you save money. Both consolidation loans and consolidation programs are available online to cater to the needs of debt-ridden consumers. Debt can arise because of situations like sudden unemployment, an accident, a severe illness or the death of an earning family member. However, debt consolidation doesn’t work for a very small amount of debt. You should go for consolidation if you have run up a debt amount of $10,000 or more.

Why online debt consolidation has become so popular?

Online consolidation has become a much discussed topic because of the following advantages that it offers:

Fewer formalities: Online debt consolidation doesn’t ask for a lot of paperwork or documentation. The application procedure is simple as well. Hence, it takes less time to enroll for a program.
Speedy and convenient: Since the overall procedure is managed online, online consolidation is easy to perform and you can pay off your debts within a short time. If you continue to make just the minimum payment for your bills, it would take many years to get out of debt. Consolidation rolls all your debts into one and you can come out of debt within just 4-6 years.
No creditor harassment: You can breathe a sigh of relief since the creditors would no longer harass you through embarrassing telephone calls or intimidating letters.
Money management: Consolidating your debts would simplify your budget and stop incurring additional fees. This gives you real peace of mind.
Debt management tips: Many professional debt consolidators offer free tips and advices to manage your debt. These advices are priceless.
Better option than filing bankruptcy: Bankruptcy ruins your credit for an extensive period. By consolidating your debts and paying them off, you can steer clear of bankruptcy.

Follow-up from the Monroe on a Budget hostess - here is some additional information on debt relief:

Lending Tree’s Debt Consolidation – Pros and Cons.
The Simple Dollar’s The First Step Toward Getting out of Debt.
Crown Financial Ministries free online publications include a debt list, debt elimination tips and a debt and credit discussion article.
Monroe on a Budget’s debt relief archives.

If you’d like to write a guest post for the budget blog, contact me via e-mail. What I’m looking for – no matter where I pick up a link or a headline – is whether the article is useful or interesting to southeast Michigan families who are on a budget.

Continue reading Guest post: Taking care of debt on line …

From Monroe on a Budget.

December 16, 2009 | Filed Under Frugal Living | Leave a Comment

The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Next Project Edition

Now that my book is finished, I’ve decided to embark on another big time-consuming project, but this one is a little different.

I’m a big fan of online banks. I think they’re an incredibly powerful tool for helping you with your personal savings. For a long time, I’ve wanted to talk about a slew of online banks, just to review all of the different options out there.

There’s been a problem with this, though. I don’t like to talk about products that I don’t actually use myself. I won’t review a book unless I’ve read it and thought about it. I won’t review a financial tool unless I’ve used it extensively myself. And I won’t talk about a bank unless I’ve used it myself.

I use ING Direct as my primary bank. I talk about it often. But I don’t mention other banks for the reason above, and I want that to change. There is a huge diversity in online banks, offering different features, different interest rates, different offerings, and different tools for managing your money.

Here’s my solution. Over the next several months, I’m going to open accounts at a bevy of online banks. I’m going to try them out, see in detail what services they offer, transfer some money in out, test their customer service, and close the accounts (if I don’t intend to replace an account I’m already using).

Then, once a week, I’m going to post a detailed review of that bank in an effort to outline clearly what distinguishes it from other banks. What do they do differently? Who is this bank most appropriate for?

So I’m going to open this up to you a little bit. What would you like to see in a review of an online bank? What features really matter to you and would cause you to make the move to switch to a new bank?

While you chew on that, here are some interesting personal finance articles that might interest you.

“Natural Inclinations…Are Hardly Ever Altered or Overcome.” Over the last few days, I’ve been enormously inspired by this little quote. (@ the happiness project)

Do you do your most important work first? I used to have a very organized morning routine, where I would do most of my “routine” tasks before starting the day. What I found is that I got my “routine” tasks done, but most of the real meat of my work – the creative tasks – didn’t go nearly as well. (@ unclutterer)

How to Change Your Motor Oil Changing one’s own motor oil is a tremendous way to save money – when you pay someone else to do it, you’re essentially paying someone $20 so you can sit in a waiting room while some guy unscrews a nut, collects some oil in a bucket, screws the nut back in place, then dumps some clean oil in the top. Why not do that at home where you can do something worthwhile while the oil drains and save yourself $20? (@ art of manliness)

What To Do With A Financial Windfall This is a great step-by-step guide to handling a windfall. If you don’t have a plan, windfalls can actually be a large negative disruption in your life, as we talked about a bit last week. (@ moolanomy)

Results of a Week Without Spending Can you go an entire week without spending any money? As an experiment, this family attempted to have a week without any spending and managed to get by only spending $3. Fairly insightful stuff. (@ pt money)