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You have several options when it comes to eliminating and rising above the debt that has taken over your life. One of the best options is debt consolidation. In this article, we will discuss the top ten reasons you should consider debt consolidation over any other form of debt relief method available.

Reason to Consolidate Your Debt #1 – Lower Your Interest Rates

One of the best things about debt consolidation is that more often than not, you will have the opportunity to lower your rates of interest. Instead of several different interest rates, you will obtain one interest rate, that is far lower than the many combined. Typically, when you consolidate your debt, you keep that same interest rate as well. It does not tend to fluctuate as your original debt interest rates may.

Reason to Consolidate Your Debt #2 – Lower Your Stress Levels

Debt can cause a great deal of various feelings, afflictions, and this can be on both a personal and mental level. When debt begins to take control of your life, instead of the other way around, many things can happen, such as:

Depression
Anger
Stress
Health Issues
Arguments
Problems At Work
Lack of Concentration
Sleeplessness

Debt consolidation allows you to focus more on your life than your debt.

Reason to Consolidate Your Debt #3 – Improve Your Life

When you consolidate your debt, you are taking the necessary steps to improve your life overall. You will find that your health is better, your relationship are better, you feel better, and best of all, your credit starts to improve, and more doors will open for you. When you are making an effort to get yourself out of debt, more people are willing to give you a chance. Therefore, you may be able to finally purchase that home you have been wanting or even find a better place to live, within your means of course.
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Most people don’t realize that they can drive down their credit scores even if they have a near-perfect record of paying their bills. The five classic mistakes you need to avoid are:

1. If you are applying for a mortgage, never pay off old collections, judgments or tax liens until the closing. (Ask your mortgage lender if you pay these debts at your closing.)

When you pay these debts off before applying for a mortgage, they are treated and scored as new and recent accounts with delinquent activity. This drives your credit scores down.

2. Closing credit card accounts initially lowers your scores. Again, this is due to your action showing up as new and recent credit activity. Any new or recent activity will have an initial detrimental effect on your scores.

Of course, after you close inactive or unnecessary accounts the scores will eventually come up because you will have less credit or potential credit risk. But it may take months for this to occur. Unfortunately most people close superfluous accounts right before applying for a loan thinking that it will improve their scores. If you want to close these accounts, do so well in advance of applying for a loan.

3. Don’t keep high balances on credit cards and revolving debt. Maintaining balances under 30 percent of the available credit on each card can improve your scores. For example, if your available credit on a card is $1,000 keep the balance under $300. Also remember to pay off debt instead of moving it to other revolving accounts. Moving balances to zero- or low-interest credit cards can actually lower your scores.
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Nowadays, debt has become a standard part of life. It comes in many forms including student loans, medical bills, auto loans, unpaid utilities, mortgages, money borrowed from friends and relatives, store credit and the most dreaded of them all, credit card debt. It’s a part of life for almost all of us, rich or poor, but it doesn’t have to be. In this nine-part series of articles you will learn the steps to take to become completely debt-free and stay debt-free.

Let me start off by saying not all debt is necessarily bad. It can be very beneficial to borrow money sometimes, if done for the right reason. For example, taking out a mortgage to buy even a modest home will most likely cost you several hundred thousands of dollars over the life of the loan, however you will gain equity and the house will usually appreciate in value, making it a better option in a lot of cases than living in an apartment. Other examples would be borrowing money for college in order to acquire a higher paying job, or borrowing money to start a business. Other times it is just un-avoidable such as a medical condition or loss of a job. They key is to borrow for the right reasons.

The problem is, we quite often borrow money for the wrong reasons. These include taking out auto loans for nicer cars than we really need, not saving money to cover minor emergencies that come up such as a major appliance breaking, and of course making purchases with credit cards when we don’t have the money to buy them.
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