Debt Reduction Mistakes

When you finally get around to reducing your debt, you want to make sure you go about it in the correct way. There’s more to debt reduction than cutting up credit cards and cutting costs. If you approach debt reduction with a well thought out plan that fits your situation, you’ll find yourself debt free with a bit of effort. If you try to reduce debt without a plan, however, you may find yourself in a worse position that when you started. Here are 10 debt reduction mistakes that you want to be sure to avoid:

Ignoring Your Debt: The longer that you ignore debt, the more effort it is going to take to reduce it.

Getting Taken In by Unsolicited Email Promises: Scammers prey on those that are in debt and know what to say to make you think there is an easy way out. Fall for it and watch your debt problems become even worse.

Consolidating Credit Cards Onto a Home Mortgage: While not a bad plan in theory, this only works if you have solved the problem of how you got into debt in the first place. If you haven’t, the credit cards will likely be maxed out again plus your house will be at risk.

Reducing Costs Without a Plan: If you start cutting costs here and there without a plan, you are much more likely to fail in the quest to become debt free.

Trying to Please Everyone: If you find yourself in a situation where you can’t pay all your bills, trying to please everyone will only end up making everyone mad at you. It’s best to determine which bills are more important than others.

Bypassing Annual Checkups: In an effort to reduce debt and save money, some people decide to forgo annual check-ups on themselves and their material possessions. While this may save money in the short run, it can mean much larger bills down the road.

Opening New Accounts for Better Rates: Much like placing your credit card debt onto your mortgage, getting new credit cards with lower interest rates is a good plan in theory, but again assumes you have fixed the problem that originally got you in debt. If not, you’ll simply find yourself with more credit cards that are maxed out.

Closing Credit Card Accounts: While this is a last resort option for those who don’t have the willpower to not use them, it comes at a cost. Closing accounts will hurt your credit score and give you less leverage if you need to negotiate with your credit card companies. It will also mean that you can’t use them for your emergency fund. It’s better to place them somewhere where you will never use them except in an extreme emergency.

Not Knowing Your Rights: You have rights and you need to know what these rights are. When it comes to debt, many companies don’t play by the rules and if you don’t know what the rules are, you will likely have a lot more stress, spend a lot more time and be a lot more frustrated than if you do know your rights. You can see your rights at the Federal Trade Commission

Not Knowing Forgiven Debt is Taxable: You negotiate your way to a settlement and think that your debt problems have all been solved only to find out that you owe a lot of money to the IRS. Forgiven debt over $600 is in many cases considered taxable.

If you are in debt, today is the day to begin working on getting rid of it, but make sure that you avoid the above mistakes in the process.

Jeffrey Strain

Jeffrey strain is a freelance author, his work has appeared at The Street.com and seekingalpha.com. In addition to having authored thousands of articles, Jeffrey is a former resident of Japan, former owner of Savingadvice.com and a professional digital nomad.