How can a scream be gentle?
Debt CONsolidation is a CON. It’s what normal people do and normal people are broke. normal people do it because they are conned into believing that it will solve all their problems. If saving interest on a few STUPID debts and giving it to the broke guy conning you, is your idea of fixing your problems, then consider being weird for a moment.
Why pay someone to cut you?
Paying someone to “work out your life” is not what you need. All you are doing is moving your debt, that’s it. There’s not a solution on the table when dealing with these people. Their loving embrace is laced with deception as they claim to understand. What they truly understand is that they are making money off of you – LOTS OF IT! They are certainly not doing it for free. The problem is closer than you think. The problem is your behavior, NOT what your behavior created. You have to change your behavior. If you continue to do the same stuff, you will continue to get the same results. First you have to believe you can consolidate your debt by changing your ways. Do you want to know how?
I’ll give you the HARDCORE, TIME IS RUNNING OUT version
Problem number one is that your payments per month are disastrous. Sell the near $1,000 vehicle payments, and you’ve already loosened the shackles enough to give your neck a breather. That number is not even taking into consideration the amount you would save if you replaced them with cheaper paid for vehicles. (Car insurance would go down as well as your property taxes, and possibly fuel costs too.)
Common Arguments:
- We’re already upside down on them, we would lose money. You’ve been losing money on them since you drove them off of the lot, that is why you are upside down. Sometimes you have to cut your losses, especially if it continues to cost you. This loss is referred to as stupid tax. All of us have done stupid, and the price of getting vehicles you can’t afford is sometimes costly. It’s not safe to assume that because you can make the payment that you can afford it. Take into consideration all of the added costs, and then throw in life happening right on top of it!! What? No savings either?
- We NEED reliable, roomy transportation for our family. That you are doing right, what you are doing wrong is thinking that signing up for a bunch of debt is your ONLY method of achieving the same goal. A paid for car drives a whole lot better than one dragging payments behind it!! NORMAL people have car payments, BE WEIRD because remember, normal people are broke!
- We do not have the money to pay the difference and buy two paid for vehicles. You don’t have the money to keep doing what you’ve been doing either- so what’s the difference? Here’s the difference. Dave’s way saves you over $1,000 a month and you are 4 or 5 years closer to releasing the stranglehold of bondage! Worst case scenario is that you have to get a loan to cover the difference plus no more than an extra $2,000 per car to buy reliable paid for cars. You’re trading HUGE loans for much smaller ones. That’s real consolidation.
Those are just a few excuses there are probably more, but I hope my point was loud and clear! What you have done with money so far, has got you right where you are right now – consider trying something different! You have now found out that you can’t rely on anything being steady because life happens. You never know when that will be but if you are prepared for it then it doesn’t steal your hopes and dreams every time it drops in to say hi. The only thing that you can rely on is that life will happen!! The only question is, are you going to be ready when it happens again?
Love is spending less than you make
Give your family the gift of security by changing your family tree now. The hope is there you just have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired!! You have to get mad, and most of all you have to hate debt! Debt IS your enemy!! Annihilate it now before it beats you and robs you of your soul. You have the ability to stand up and win, you just have to do it God’s way. God’s way is not about having every thing you can, it’s about giving every thing you can. Even though that does not always mean financially, it’s a great place to start! Love your family by preparing them for when Life happens.
LIVE like no one else, and later you can LIVE & GIVE like no one else. ~Dave Ramsey
I agree debt consolidation doesn’t really help if you haven’t done a budget, committed to never borrowing money again, and living on less you make. Most people don’t commit to any of those things which is how we end up in more debt than we started with. Maybe this is one reason why people are losing their homes even????
I believe consolidation is a rip off, sure you don’t have payments but now you end up dragging around a large house payment thats bigger than molasses!! plus if you ever need to move away downsize or upgrade in house, you would not be able to because your house is worth less now because you added a heap of debt to it!!
I encourage you to run from this please!!! total rip off and as much as they claim they are helping you they are not!!!!
A couple years ago, BD (Before Dave), we did a consolidation. It didn’t take long before we had credit card balances run up again. Not to mention now we owe about $20k more on our house than it’s worth, and are making ridiculous payments at 13%. Unfortunately we are stuck now because we can’t get the house appraised for enough to roll that 2nd loan into our 1st to lower the rate, so we are just having to suck it up.
However, thankfully FPU came along and we are done with credit cards and there is an end in sight.
Debt consolidation is NOT a good answer to anything!
Yeah we did one too and it lead to a refinance because the interest rate was so high and the monthly payment was ridiculous, not to mention the fact that we were paying so much money to have someone else to do what we could have done. You know…the debt snowball! 🙂