Credit Card and Personal Debt Consolidation Loans -- the Real Answer?

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Author: Ashley Hamilton-Gray

Article source: http://www.articledeshboard.com/. Used with author's permission.

When pressure is mounting to meet credit card and other debts or loan repayments on time, and with an increasing uncertainty of being able to do so, the easy answer is to take out yet another loan -- to pay off all existing loans and consolidate them into a single payment -- i.e. a debt consolidation loan. It sounds simple enough, and often is. Repayments are made affordable by being spread over a longer period of time, and you can breathe again with your personal finances. Effectively you still owe the same amount (or often more), it will take you longer to get out of debt, so you will eventually be paying more for your loan facility. This might be the right solution for you -- but possibly not. Especially if you have already been here before, (either with a specific debt consolidation loan or with a new 0% interest credit card), and have then managed to run up further debt, (which is very easy when credit card statements start showing plenty in the 'available to spend' section), you are in real danger of digging a deeper hole!

The problem here is that no one but you knows the real extent of your debt, your availability of ready cash to borrow at any given impulsive moment, and your ability (or inability) to curb any tendency to spend money you haven't got. From the point of view of your creditors you're still a very viable proposition as you are someone who pays them. In other words you are very creditworthy. So, for being good here's a further £5,000 to spend! Without fully realising it, you could now be in an extremely vulnerable position.

Credit worthiness is something we desperately seek to maintain, presumably because we feel we need -- and will continue to need -- credit. It's as though our entire self-worth depends upon being credit worthy! Reality does not verify this belief. A healthy self worth is far more closely connected to our resourcefulness -- in other words the ability to produce income for ourselves -- than to any ability to procure the use of funds that will eventually need to be repaid. It is only the false sense of security, intrinsic to a credit-bound society, that influences us to believe otherwise. But to really succeed -- and rise above any susceptibility to succumb to the insidious addiction of debt -- it is imperative to get to grips with reality now! It's a strange anomaly in a world that constantly advertises 'Pay less -- get more!' that the majority of us opt for paying considerably more for our pleasures and purchases by choosing credit!

There are various attempts afoot to re-educate our thinking away from the seductive allure of such irrationality, (a mentality from which it is difficult to disentangle oneself due to the insidious and aggressive nature of credit advertising). 'Puts you in control' is a phrase verging on fraudulent, yet continues to be used extensively in credit card advertising. This claim is the farthest thing imaginable from the truth! It only gives you control if a credit card is used in the way it was originally conceived and intended, i.e. to be paid off at the end of each month. But how many of us actually do this today? The answer is self-evident in the increasing number of people looking for debt Consolidation loans each day.

If you are someone who has been caught up in the credit trap, instead of jumping straight out of the proverbial frying pan into the fire, why not use this opportunity to give yourself a totally new perspective on borrowing/spending, and on your financial life generally, by rethinking your position? Is it possible for you to walk away from 'the hook' of credit and learn to live differently? Could you possibly decide to give yourself a break? Might the time be right now to really take control of your finances?

To learn more about various ways to Really EMPOWER YOURSELF toward MONEY visit the www.cashflow-problem.com website. . . You really are worth it! (just copy and paste the url address into your browser)