The first step in eliminating your debts is to make an honest assessment of your ability to pay down your debt based on your age, income, and expenses.

In some cases, it may make sense to seek out a debt settlement service to help you negotiate with those to whom you owe money in order to reduce or eliminate your debt.

However, in most cases I do not recommend the use of debt consolidation services.

These services make their money by taking part of what you would use to pay your debts as a service fee, and in most cases using these services will reduce your credit score.

I feel that many people who use these services only do so because they do not know what else to do, and they are only thinking about how to resolve their debts in the short term.

The problem is that although the average person makes six financial decisions per day, few people receive any training in the basics of how to handle money.

I will help you create an easy to follow plan that will allow you to pay off your debts yourself, avoiding the downsides of bad credit debt consolidation.

The solutions offered may include creating a budget, reducing continuing expenses, and maintaining a worksheet as a debt payoff calculator.

In addition to paying off debts, I will also help you calculate how much you can save for retirement, and help you to understand your money in terms of lifetime earnings.

If after learning the method that I describe you still wish to seek a debt settlement service, you can visit our Debt Management Tools page for further information on eliminating debt.