How to Achieve Financial Success

Planning ahead is the key to financial success and today we will give you some tips to help you get on your way.

This post may contain affiliate links. See my disclosure policy for more info.

Plan Ahead for Financial Success

Are you someone who is bad with money? Do you often find yourself struggling to make ends meet each month? If so, don't worry – you're not alone.

Millions of people around the world are in the same position. However, that doesn't mean that you have to continue to struggle.

There are things that you can do to help change your situation for the better. One of those things is to start planning ahead for financial success.

By doing so, you'll be able to set yourself up for a brighter future.

Turning 50 is not the time to start thinking about retirement and 2 months before buying a house isn't the time to start checking your credit report either.

So, what exactly should you do? Keep reading to find out!

Debt Consolidation

If you have a lot of debt, then you will want to consider a debt consolidation loan.

If you feel like you're drowning in debt, borrowing from one card to pay another, or trying to decide which one to pay each month, then you might want to consider a debt consolidation loan.

These types of loans roll all your other payments into one, can lower your monthly payment, and help to pay them off sooner.

I have found that a Debt Consolidation loan is perfect unless you are behind in your monthly payments on your credit cards.

Then it's harder to get the loan and you might want to consider the next option, credit counseling.

Credit Counseling

I've used a credit counseling agency in my younger days after my divorce. I was young and didn't know anything about financial success. It helped get me to where I am today.

Unfortunately, finances weren't something they taught in school and my parents were old school, so there was no talking about finances at home either.

Credit Counseling agencies will work with the companies and you to come up with a repayment plan when you are behind in payments.

And they can also help reduce your debt saving you money in the long run.

This is for when you think you're only option is bankruptcy. There is hope.

Debt Settlement for Financial Success

Debt settlement is a service I used when we purchased our house. (I said not to wait till 2 months before buying a house to check your credit, didn't I?)

I hate when there are surprises on my credit report. Honestly, I don't check it often enough. Did you know that you can get a free credit report from all three bureaus once a year?

Yep! So now I check it right after the first of the year every year, to see if there's anything on it that shouldn't be or that I don't know about. Trust me...it happens.

So, anyway, back to the debt settlement. When the mortgage company pulled my credit report, there were a couple of collection agency bills on it.

I had no idea about them because we had recently moved and I never got them.

I was a little skeptical and scared that we weren't going to get the mortgage because of them.

Well, the settlement company contacted the collection agencies, asked me how much I was able to come up with in order to get them taken care of, and within a week, everything was good to go.

Phew, that was scary. You don't want that to happen to you.