Getting Help With Your Debts

There are a number of organisations that can directly help you to sort out your debts. Avoid debt management companies like the plague because they charge you for their services and opt for those who will help you for free. Try the following:

Consumer Credit Counselling Service: The charity has an excellent reputation and send you self-help packs, arrange counselling sessions over the phone, or face-to-face in certain areas, and negotiate directly with creditors on your behalf.

Citizens' Advice: Most towns have a drop-in centre with trained volunteers who will help you sort out a debt management plan and to deal with creditors. They'll even help you with court appearances if necessary.

Other free organisations worth checking out are Payplan and National Debtline.

However, if you prefer to remain anonymous and are prepared to handle your debts yourself, you can do no better than drop into our Dealing with Debt discussion board. There you'll find people who are in exactly the same position as you - maybe even worse - along with those who are getting to grips with their debts and can help you sort out yours. There are also several who have long since resolved their debt problems and will guide you towards doing the same.

A good place to start is the Welcome Message posted by NomoneyNohoney who offers the encouraging thought that many of the people on the board 'understand what you're going through, and here, the advice and support is free'.

And for further encouragement, here's workfromhome who finally plucked up the courage to take action by contacting her creditors and received a positive response from them. 'In 18 months we are going to be out of debt which will be fabulous but you have no idea how good it is today to not be afraid to answer the phone or the door or open the mail. It's an added bonus I didn't expect'.

You might think that your debts are so huge and overwhelming that no-one can possibly help. Scrap that thought from your mind immediately and gasp in amazement at someone who arrived on the board 'with personal unsecured debts of £138,000 and a failing company with what we now know had over £250,000 worth of debt including at least £50,000 I would have to cover'. Your gasp will be one of admiring astonishment because, believe it or not, he's out of the woods now. If he can do it, so can you.

The interesting and reassuring thing is that the people on the board come from all walks of life and have got into debt for all sorts of reasons. None of these things matter on the Dealing with Debt board where the aim is not to be judgmental and to offer help to those who may be in total despair.

Not surprisingly, once you've been helped yourself you'll probably find you want to help others too. Your personal experiences of debt mean you have real knowledge that you can share with others. And that knowledge is priceless.

Funnily enough, there are lot of people who post on the Debt board who aren't in debt at all and yet they pop in to help those who are quite frequently. To paraphrase one poster, they get caught up in the lives of the people who post there and they want to 'see how the story ends'. There's no greater reward than seeing how your advice has actively helped another person on the road to recovery from debt.

There's a prime example here of a first post from one Fool who was terrified he might lose his girlfriend if she knew about the extent of his debts. "I can't face the risk of losing her by telling her the truth (I haven't lied to her, but I haven't told her anything either)" As you can see from his follow-up post, he took the advice offered on the board to print out his post and give it to her to read - with unexpected results. (She laughed and 'even offered to do a shift's overtime a month to help me')

You'll get help with composing your letters to creditors as well as information about how to handle various debt collectors and bailiffs and what happens if you are being threatened with even worse action. (And these three posts are from someone who happens to be a debt collector himself so he knows his stuff and is prepared to use his knowledge to help).

And finally, if you're still not convinced, take this comment from Blakmadonna who took the bull by the horns with the help offered by Fools when they realised they could do a better job than the debt-management company they were using: "For everybody out there that is struggling - there is light at the end of the tunnel. Just don't suffer in silence, come on here and ask for help".

It's immensely gratifying when someone is finally able to say they are out of debt. On our US site, Fool.com, it's referred to as doing a ''Happy Dance" and it's a rather apt expression. Everyone always feels tremendously pleased for them and it also serves as a huge morale boost to those who are still striving to reach their own debt-free day.