What Can A Non Profit Credit Counseling Service Do For You?

By Author: William Hauselberg
Total Articles: 816
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It is easy to fall behind with monthly payments, but hard to catch back up again. Harassing letters and phone calls from collection agencies can be embarrassing and stressful. Often times people want to settle their debt, but they simply do not know how to go about doing it. If you are behind with your monthly payments, contacting a non-profit credit counseling service can help.

What do Consumer Credit Counseling Services Do?

Credit counselors provide assistance to help consumers handle their current debt and also supply information to educate people on how to stay out of debt in the future. They review current budget and spending trends and try to cut corners if at all possible. A counselor may suggest eating out less often or eliminating a few cable channels to make paying your bills more affordable. Once they have trimmed all the fat from your budget, they will help lower your monthly payments by making arrangements with creditors to decrease high interest rates. Finally, your counselor will provide you with information to stay on track, spend within your limits, and save for your future.

Credit Counseling ...
... and Debt Management

Debt management is another way to help control debt. Although both non-profit credit counseling and a debt management program contact creditors to lower interest rates and drive down monthly payments, there are a few differences. Credit counselors may charge a fee for their services, but since they are non-profit the fee is nominal and the money is used only to cover materials and overhead. Debt management companies are for profit, and as such only a portion of the monthly payment you make to them goes toward paying back your creditors and another portion of your payment covers the fee for their services. Generally when you sign up for a debt management program it does not include information that you can use to stay out of debt in the future.

If you are not behind in your bills, contacting creditors to make payment arrangements can have an adverse effect on your credit rating. If your bills are behind and your credit is getting worse each month, credit counseling can help. Deciding to go to a counselor or take part in a management program is a big choice, but one that can make an equally big improvement in your financial life.

Credit counseling can help a lot in today's financial world. This is a well written article on debt management program.