As the housing market cools and the credit crunch bites a whole industry has grown up around Personal Finance but also debt and Bankruptcy. How often have you seen those ads on TV and the Internet offering to solve all of your life’s problems in one easy step…for a fee of course. A big one at that. So to solve your debt problem they are going to ask you for more money which in turn may have the effect of putting you further in debt – Nice.
Now I’m not saying that all these services are bad but the cynic in me just wonders have they your best interest at heart?
Queue the broken record: As I said before and I’ll continue to say it until I’m blue in the face – the ONLY person who can help you out of debt and bankruptcy is YOU! But what about my credit counsellor or my attorney? Well to be honest they can only do as much as you let them. Their effectiveness is directly impacted by how willing you are you go along with their suggestions…you can bring a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.
In reality for someone who is in debt or facing bankruptcy the emotional challenges (never mind the financial challenges) are huge. To tackle the financial issues in isolation of the emotional issues is recipe for disaster. The reason is because if the person tackles the debt and manages to pay off the debt without trying to understand why they go into debt in the first place then they’re doomed to repeat the behaviour.
No it’s not fair but that is simply the way it works. You can sit there and bemoan your situation or you can get angry and seek to change it in a positive way.
Change is possible
In order to restore your financial health you need to treat these two key elements.
Emotional financial health
Financial management habits
This may sound intimidating but if you can gear yourself up and are prepared even the smallest steps in the right direction then it will be as easy as painting by numbers because that is exactly what you will be doing and we all remember how much fun that was.
But please remember that it is up to you.
Over the coming weeks I have set myself the goal of posting on the key Debt management topics. My aim is to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of why you are where you are and how you can get to where you want to go in the shortest possible time. I’ll be placing a big emphasis on the emotions that debt and money cause and how you can spot the problems and solve them quickly. I’ll be looking for feedback, so please feel free to comment on the posts and let me know if they are useful.
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