Many Americans owe thousands of dollars in credit card debt and various other loans. Debt burden is thus a major problem of many people of the country. In times like these, there are many commercials of Debt Relief companies being aired on television. These commercials claim that the companies will help you get rid of your debt very quickly and easily.

This sometimes makes borrowers question whether it is necessary to hire an agency to get rid of debts?
The answer is “no”; there is no need to hire such agencies. You can do everything that these agencies can do for you, yourself and that too, without having to pay a large amount of money as their fee.

Moreover, you should know that only bankruptcy or repayment of debts can eliminate them completely in a short time. The rest of the options such as debt consolidation and Debt Relief just provide some relief from debts rather than eliminating them completely.


So the question arises what can you do on your own to consolidate debts? Well there are a few steps for Debt Relief that you can take yourself and these are mentioned below:

Firstly, contact your creditors, explain your situation to them and ask for leniency in some of the terms of your loan. There are many creditors who are ready to work with their debtors in order to devise a suitable payment plan.

This is because they can get payment from debtors more easily this way rather than going to a collection agency. If they have given your case to a collection agency, then ask for debt validation before paying any money to this agency.

Additionally, many people fear that if they consolidate their debts on their own, they will have to face further harassment from their creditors. However, they should remember if they are trying to repay their loans, then the creditor cannot harass them as they are legally bound to give borrowers a chance to repay their loans.


Secondly, you can contact lenders to give you a large loan to cover all your small loans, which is the essence of Debt Relief. You can take a secured loan against your house or car or opt for an unsecured personal loan. Besides this, you can borrow from your retirement funds or from friends or family members.

Thirdly, if you are opting for consolidation of credit card debt then you can do so by yourself by getting a low interest credit card. You can then transfer the outstanding balance of all other credit cards to this card.

If you hire an agency for help with Debt Relief, they will take the same steps given above and will charge a fee for that.