It is normal to borrow money to meet the day to day needs of life especially if your income cannot cover all your expenses. However,after borrowing money,you can at times find yourself unable to meet all your obligations to creditors because of financial constraints. Failure to pay creditors can result to a bad credit rating which in turn makes it harder to obtain financial help in the future. In this post,the discussion will feature useful tips on how to handle creditors when you are lagging behind on your repayments.
Before we move into our article It can be difficult when you find yourself in debt and struggling to get credit because of your past history with creditors. If you are in such a situation,a great resource to read is the guide to credit repair.
The first thing that you should do is to understand your net monthly income and then calculate how much you can set aside for debt repayment. To do this,you need to consolidate all the cash you make from different ventures. You should then set aside basic monthly expenses such as rent,gas and electricity costs. This will give you an understanding of how much you can afford to pay your creditors at the end of each month.
You should then create a comprehensive list of all your creditors. This is important since it is easy to forget your debts especially if you do not keep a current and updated of what you owe. You should then classify into two parts; high priority debts and low priority debts. High priority dents should include things that can directly affect your life at short notice such as mortgage payments,court fines and council taxes. When setting aside money for debt repayment,ensure that you pay high priority debts first. This does not mean that you should forget low priority debts. Try to create a balance in your repayments with the bulk going to high priority creditors.
If you are having cash constraints and you are unable to pay off your creditors,do not go mute on your creditors. If you remain silent,your creditors will assume that you have decided to default on your repayments. If you cannot make your repayments on time,contact your creditors and inform them that you will be late on your payments. Inform your creditors about the reasons why you are late and also explain that you are working on a plan to repay your debts.
When informing your creditors that you will be unable to keep to your repayment schedule,engage them and negotiate for a new repayment schedule that is more favourable. If you show that you are committed to meeting your obligations,your creditors can make friendly adjustments such as freezing extra charges and interest on your outstanding debt.
If your creditors agree to renegotiate your debt repayment terms,ensure that you get the agreement written down as a contract. A contract is the best guarantee that your creditors will not renege on the new terms and start hounding you for no reason.
If you are given new terms by your creditors,it is paramount that you ensure that you keep your end of the agreement. This means that you should make timely payments as per the new debt repayment plan. This is the best way to ensure that you do not damage your credit rating further.