How to Get Out of Debt

I received a call this morning from one of my unfavorite companies...a debt collection agency (fortunately, the only one we do business with). The man on the phone wanted me to pay the bill in full. (Wouldn't I love to do that! I would probably like that even more than he would.) When he found out he couldn't have the whole thing, he wanted more per month than we've been paying. That, of course, is his job. But my job is to keep the budget in balance. I told him things are not better since the last time we talked, because we now have a blind son who needs our help. He actually sympathized (collections people can actually be human once you've reached an initial agreement. Don't expect them to be human when you're first getting acquainted, though). It's funny that I was never good at yard sales or anywhere that I would have to barter. But when necessity requires it, one can acquire some new skills. So, we settled, not where I wanted, not where he wanted, but a compromise.

Is there something you can learn from this? Well, if you're not in debt, try to avoid it. If you are in debt, try to stay out of collection. If you're in collection, try to communicate and negotiate with them.

I could share with you many other snippets of story and advice from the last year. But what caused me to want to write this post today was that I stumbled upon this article about paying off debt that looked really good! If you have debt that you would like to get rid of it, I hope you'll enjoy this article, by David Bach, as much as I did! Of course, for us, the one we should probably pay off the fastest is the one that's in collection. What a joy that would be!



Note: In case you don't know our story, we are responsible people! We just fell on some hard times, and are now, as they say, "playing catch-up".