Are you losing sleep at night due to financial concerns? If so, there’s a very good chance that you’re trying to determine the best path to assist you in becoming debt-free so that you can put your money worries behind you. As a matter of fact, you’ve likely spent many hours searching the Internet trying to find a solution, but continue to be unsure of whether you should enter a Consumer Credit Counseling program or instead choose to eliminate your debt through debt settlement.

Only your individual financial situation is important when determining the most fitting choice to become free from debt. If you’re considering Consumer Credit Counseling, this may be a good choice for you if your debt isn’t extremely high, and you’re able to commit to a long term repayment arrangement with your creditors. The Consumer Credit Counseling agency you hire will contact your creditors to negotiate reduced interest rates on your accounts, and set you up with a reasonable monthly payment, which they will distribute to your various creditors. Under normal circumstances, the entire process will leave you with no further money owed by the end of approximately five years or so. By going this route, you’ll still be required to pay some interest, as well as the full balance on each of your accounts, but as was stated previously, the end result will leave you with no further debt.

It’s important to remember that Consumer Credit Counseling doesn’t work for everybody. As a matter of fact, I recently talked with an individual who had been enrolled in Consumer Credit Counseling for almost two years, continually paying out nearly $1,700 per month, and wasn’t seeing any significant reduction in their debt. What’s worse is that this particular program wasn’t scheduled to end and finally bring this person out of debt for at least another three years. This scenario is understandable due to the fact that the Consumer Credit Counseling Agency was only able to negotiate the interest rates on this person’s accounts down to 16%. Obviously, in this situation, Debt Settlement may be the right way to go. You see, based on the amount of money still owed, this person could be free from debt in less than 18 months if they choose to attempt negotiating with their creditors for a reduced payoff amount (debt settlement). So, as you can see, if Consumer Credit Counseling is not a good option for you, Debt Settlement may be your best option if you can afford to accumulate sufficient funds on a monthly basis, or if you have funds available through a 401K or home equity line of credit. If one or more of these sources is available to you, you may want to consider Debt Settlement as a viable path to become free from debt.

Whatever you choose, what’s most important is that you eliminate high interest credit card debt quickly, because it could take you in excess of 30 years to pay off your debt if you continue making your required minimum monthly payments.