Down to my last dollar!

Do you remember when you were a child, trying to get to sleep at night? The harder that you thought about sleeping the longer it seemed to take to fall asleep. The same is often true when we are trying to think of the solution to a pressing problem. The harder we think about the problem, the further away an answer seems to be.

As we sit down to confront the problem, many thoughts come to mind, but few are clear and helpful. When I was that sleepless child, I would climb out of bed and select a book from the bookcase. Reading the book back in bed I would forget that I was trying to sleep and would eventually do so without further effort. I would like you to ‘get out of bed’ and reach for a book. In this case, it is a particular book called How to Get Ideas, by Jack Foster (sample review: ‘If I had money enough to buy only one book, it would be Jack Foster’s How to Get Ideas. It is a quick read for a quick start, a motivator to make you more productive and more secure. This book should be re-read every four or five months as food for the rest of your life.’).

Instead of sitting down at my desk with a mug of coffee, switching on the question ‘I am down to my last dollar. What do I do now?’ and racking my brain for hours (a similar sensation to hitting my head against a brick wall, and with broadly similar results) I now imagine that instead of being ‘me’ I am in fact a counselor. ‘Me’ has come to my office asking for help with a problem, ‘I’, the counselor, am going to dig deep into my own experience to help ‘me’ to form a plan leading to a resolution.

It sounds a little schizophrenic, but believe me, it works. The old saying ‘physician, heal thyself’ applies. We have the deepest knowledge about ourselves, our strengths, our weaknesses, what holds us back, our fears, our circumstances, our hopes and dreams. What better person to advise us than ourselves? The key is to separate ‘I’ and ‘Me’ for the exercise, as I do, so that one is effectively interviewing the other, listening to the answers and giving sound advice based on our own knowledge and experience.

 

Many, maybe most people you know, are in debt. Your workmates, your family, the person sitting next to you on the train. In many cases it’s debt they think they can handle - mortgages, short-term loans. However, in just as many - maybe more - cases, it’s debt that’s killing them inside. And they’re scared.

If you’re worried about your debts:

1. Don’t take out a consolidation loan to pay for them all. Even from a reputable financial institution. Despite what the ads say, it will end up more expensive in the end and, after all, you will still be in debt.

2. Don’t ignore the problem and hope it will go away. It won’t. The law of compound interest works both ways. It can make your savings and your debt grow. Because the interest on borrowing is higher than the interest on saving, the debt grows quicker.

3. Don’t join up with a scheme that promises to help pay your debts on your behalf for a significant fee.

4. Do follow this free advice NOW:

If you don’t think you can manage to clear your level of debt on your own (if the collection letters have already started coming in, or your credit card statements are red, this is definitively you - if they haven’t, but you know they will, then this is also you), then contact one of these organisations today:

If you are in the UK, contact the CCCS (Consumer Credit Counselling Service) here or call them on 0800 138 1111. The CCCS is a registered charity who will act as a ‘middle man’ with your creditors (the people or organisations who you owe money to). You will need to fill in some forms giving details of your earnings (however small they are), your outgoings (how much you need to live on) and your borrowings (what you owe). The CCCS will contact your creditors and negotiate a favourable payment schedule with them, based on your ability to pay. You will then pay an agreed regular sum to the CCCS who will in turn pay your creditors. Your creditors will be more prepared to negotiate with CCCS than with you directly, because they know - it’s true, let’s face it - that the CCCS are more likely to keep their promises to pay them, even if it takes longer.

By the way, CCCS will only pass on payments to your creditors when you have passed the payments to CCS, as agreed - they will not act as your bank!

The CCCS service is FREE. Other organisations will charge you for this service. They may well be reputable companies, but why pay to pay off your debts when you don’t have to.

If you are in the US, contact the NFCC here. The NFCC are the organisation that represents the most reputable debt help companies in the US. They will recommend a company suitable for you. Most of these US companies either will ask for a voluntary payment only for their services, or will charge you a small fee. Before you ’sign up’ with any of the companies they recommend, though, look here.

I can speak personally for CCCS. They are a ‘lifesaver’. Always ready to listen, comment constructively, and help. The NFCC have a good reputation too, though I can’t speak for them from personal experience. In the US, look here too.

If you are not in the US or the UK, there will be similar organisations in your own country. If you need help identifying a free one, contact us at admin@downtomylastdollar.com or leave a comment on this site and we will do our best to locate one.

On final piece of advice – please act now. Not today – now. As soon as you start speaking to these organisations, the world will seem a brighter place. Guaranteed.

You are not alone.