Non-Profit Debt Management
When you’re struggling with debt, it may sometimes seem like all the ‘help’ and ‘solutions’ that you see offered are actually just ways to get you into more debt, and for some other lender to make money from your debt. However, there really are non-profit services that can help you to handle your debt.
Management
Several Debt Management Companies and organisations operate across the UK. Most of them offer to help you to manage your debts for a fee, and often the fees charged are substantial, which is the last thing you need if you’re already in financial difficulty. However, there are non-profit organisations who will help you with debt management, such as the Consumer Credit Counselling Service.
Strategy
Debt management typically involves coming up with a plan to handle and hopefully clear your debts in the long term. What often happens is that you sit down or talk over the phone with a debt management counsellor, who you give the details of all of your different debts to. The approach they will take for helping with your debt will depend on your own situation, but there are a range of options.
Plan
One of the most common things that a non-profit debt management service will do is help you to draw up a plan for managing your debts. This way you will work out how much money you have available to pay towards the debts each month, and how best to distribute this among the different bills. If you target debts such as those with the highest interest rates first, your overall financial burden will ease.
Mediate
Some debt management companies will also be able to speak to your creditors is you’re having trouble with them, acting as a mediator between you. Having someone who knows the law and your rights on your side can be greatly advantageous in these situations. In some cases, the debt management service will also handle the payments to your creditors, with you paying them the money that you have each month and them dividing it up appropriately between the various bills.
Debt management ranges all the way from giving you simple advice to arranging consolidation for your debts, with the different companies having different approaches to helping you.
Why?
If an organisation is offering their services on a non-profit basis, they will be doing this within a framework that is dependent on what the purpose of the organisation is as a whole.
Some non-profit debt management services will be offered by organisations that receive state funding, or operate as charities. Some of the organisations are motivated by faith, for example, Christian debt management involves helping you not only to clear your debts but to stop living in credit in the longer term, i.e. to change your spending habits and therefore your attitude to money.
Reputable
Whatever their reasons are, you should find out as much as you can about any debt management service you’re approaching, and make sure you only seek help from reputable sources.
