The mail is filled with offers from mortgage lenders encouraging you to make extra payments to pay off your loan early. Before you prepay a mortgage, take the following steps:
1. Pay down debts.
The interest rate on credit card balances is likely to be higher than a mortgage’s, and card interest payments aren’t deductible.
2. Feather your [...]
So you’ve been successful at settling your debts with a creditor, and you think the nightmare is over. Well, not quite. Most people don’t know this, but the IRS regards debt forgiveness (paying less than you owe on a debt) as income.
If you are dealing with the original creditor, and you work out a settlement [...]
I’m sure you’re saying, “I don’t have any money to settle my debts or I would have paid them – what do I do?” Well, you may have to make some hard choices to get out of your problems. And you may have assets that you hadn’t thought to tap into, here are some ideas:
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The original creditor is the credit card company or lending institution that issued your loan or credit card. If your account is not in collections, then the company you want to deal with is the original creditor. If your account has been turned over to collections, then the original creditor will not even deal with [...]
