Tasks of Credit Counseling Agency
A dependable credit counseling agency reviews your finances and devises a plan for assisting you to eliminate your debt and prevent subsequent financial problems. Among other things, a dependable credit counseling agency can:
- Evaluate your budget to be sure that it is realistic and provides improvements and/or additional modifications. If you don't already have a good budget, the agency will help you make one.
- Evaluate your financial situation. After reviewing your financial facts, the agency offers you a realistic picture of your present financial situation: on the brink of bankruptcy, better than most customers, or somewhere in between.
- Work out a way to keep up with those debts. It may revise your budget in an attempt to generate more cash flow (how much money you need to spend) every month so you can pay the debts faster. Or it may encourage you to take part in a debt management program in order to lower the monthly debt payments. If your financial situations are in really terrible shape, the agency will suggest that you contact a consumer bankruptcy attorney and if the agency proposes that you pay off your debts with a debt management plan, it will explain how this plan works and review its advantages and disadvantages. Also, the agency may give you an estimate on how much you will have to pay on those debts every month if it develops a debt management program for you. If your credit counseling agency develops that program for you, it will address your present unsecured debts, for example student loans, unpaid medical bills, and credit card debts. Many agencies won't help you to deal with your secured debts, like your car loan, home equity loan, and mortgage.
- Set up financial goals and offers you with adequate financial education. This education may include seminars and workshops on various aspects of financial management, and also workbooks and brochures.