Don't take anything for granted with debt

Complacency seems to filter in very fast once debtors are in discussion with their creditors where the situation seems to be gaining positive momentum and it appears like the ‘danger zone’ has disappeared. Wrong!

The only time you become complacent is the day you make your final payment on all of your accounts. Never before. Once you approach creditors for a restructure and/or consolidation to ensure they can approve payments to suit your monthly budget, you continue following up on their final decision until you have the official new contract in hand and you have signed it and left the building with the original.

However, before you approve and sign the new agreement and find that peace of mind, ensure you meet those new monthly payments, ensure they are what you requested or very close to it and meets your budget. Double-check and inquire if any legal action you were aware of prior, is now retracted and ensure that you are aware of your first payment date for the new contract and that you have not surpassed that date.

By the time you sign a new contract everything should be stable and your first payment should effectively be a future date, not prior. However, here is a guideline you should follow prior to approval and do not deviate from this as you may find yourself facing more serious problems:

•   While you are awaiting the outcome of your request from your creditor, diligently follow-up with them on the specific date as instructed and if you cannot contact the person you spoke with, continue trying until you do speak with them to secure the outcome.

•   If you are unable to contact them via telephone, make the effort to visit their office to and personally meet them to secure the outcome. Do not leave it, or forget about it, because it may be to your detriment.

•   As you took ownership and responsibility for your debt, apply a large measure of diligence and conscientiousness and follow a programme by documenting all communication, maintaining files for documentation, maintaining a daily diary to ensure you meet your ‘To do list’ to complete this process so at anytime information is required, you have it at hand.

•  Don’t continue to shove pieces of papers, deposit slips, statements, legal warning letters and notices, important notes you jot down while on the telephone, into every nook and corner and you forget where you stored it.. Be organised; label your files so you know exactly where to look when you need to source something important.

•   Maintain excel sheets of all your finances, including monthly payments, reducing balances, etc., so you create an awareness of exactly what you are charged, what is being over-charged, whichmeans you are in the position to query amounts that should not be debited from your account.

•   Don’t be blasé and take things lightly because that is the attitude that got you into debt in the first instance, so learn to change the way you do things from day one. Be serious about getting out of debt as it is a road of commitment, dedication and sacrifice as there is no easy way out. You cannot change anything with the same attitude that created the problem you are facing currently and that is the most important fact you must learn.

•   Follow your progress from month to month as this will be a key to continuing to motivate and drive you to become debt-free, as you will see how your situation improves as you progress.

•   Don’t just arrange to take a vacation or leave when it is due simply because you received your annual vacation allowance and flight tickets to your home country before you secured all of your new agreements. Going on vacation to spend any extra money will be detrimental, so will just leaving the country when you really are unsure of your accounts legal status. Acting completely ignorant of the predicament you could find yourself in is self-inflicted as you need to discipline yourself to do a full-circle check on your financial situation before you opt to act irresponsible and careless.

•   Don’t spend any money unnecessarily before you meet your financial obligations expected of you prior to signing your new contracts with your creditors. There is no easy way out and it will be required of you to display integrity and start rebuilding the trust. So you must do your part too as it is not the creditors responsibility to chase you, rather visa versa.

When you want to inspire yourself just remember, there are lessons to be learnt in everything you attempt good or bad and if you want to transform your life from being debt-ridden to financially free then it is going to take a large degree of perseverance, patience, discipline and transformation. If you can stick to your plan, be aware of every move you want to make before you decide to make it after checking, then you will be fine.

It then becomes a pattern and a good one at that, a new path that will change the way you feel and when those changes happen, your world starts changing and don’t listen to me, try it for yourself.

You must want something so badly to enable you to force those changes upon yourself and only then, will you succeed at what you attempt.

[Note 1:  Theda Muller is a UAE-based author of two books: Embrace Financial Freedom Volume One: 10 Proven Ways To Release Debt And Emotional Fears In Today’s Economy, and Volume Two: Releasing Fear And Bouncing Back From A Debt Crisis.
She also conducts webinars and workshops on debt recovery.]

[Note 2: The views expressed are the author’s own and do not reflect in any way, the views of Emirates 24|7. Readers are advised to carry out their own due diligence before taking any decision.]

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