You may feel that you’ve reached ‘the end of the line’, and that you’ll never be able to repay your debts… but there may well be a solution to your problems.

Take a look at the two solutions described below - one of them may be your route out of debt.

Debt management plan

A debt management plan may be suitable for you if you can’t afford to keep up with the repayments to your unsecured debts as you had originally agreed, but you can repay your debts within a reasonable period of time (under different terms, however).

In simple terms, a debt management plan works by asking your lenders to accept changes to the repayment plan. If they believe accepting these changes is the best way forward, they may agree to lower monthly payments and a freeze/reduction in interest and charges.

Just be aware that repaying any debt more slowly can damage your credit rating, since you’re not sticking to the repayment plan you originally signed up to. You should speak with a professional debt adviser about all your options before entering a debt management plan.

IVA

An IVA (Individual Voluntary Arrangement), on the other hand, may be suitable for you if you are struggling with an unmanageable level of unsecured debt that you can’t afford to repay, but that you can commit to making regular reduced monthly payments towards.

An IVA will - in most cases - last for five years, and is a legally binding debt solution. Once your IVA draws to a successful close (i.e. assuming you’ve done everything you were required to), your creditors will write off any remaining unsecured debt.

Just bear in mind that it’ll have an impact on your credit rating - and if you own your home, you’ll probably have to release equity from it so you can repay more of your debt.

To find out if you’re eligible for an IVA, you’ll need to seek IVA advice (Individual Voluntary Arrangement advice). By seeking IVA advice, you’ll be able to have a professional debt adviser take a look at your situation and let you know what they believe is the most suitable way forward - whether it’s entering an IVA or not.

Reasons for bad credit repair

• If you have bad credit then on taking any kind of debt, you will be required to pay much higher rate of interest. Even, the interest rate charged on your credit card balances will be quite high. If you want to avoid this then you have no option other than going for bad credit repair. Bad credit repair will help you to raise your credit score and an impressive credit score will help you to get much competitive interest rates on your debt accounts. So, bad credit repair will actually reduce the amount of your total interest payments.
• Bad credit not only affects your loan interest rates but also your insurance payments. As with bad credit you are considered to be a risky customer, the insurance companies will charge high insurance premiums for your life insurance or auto insurance policy. But, by opting for bad credit repair, you can improve your credit score and thus can get better insurance deals.
• Not only the lenders or insurance companies, even the utility service providers check your credit record or credit score before offering you any particular service. If they find that you have bad credit, then considering you a risky client, they can ask you to make some security deposit in order to provide the service. These deposits are refunded to you if you make timely payments for the service. But, through bad credit repair, if you improve your credit record then you will be no more required to pay any money as security deposit.
• If you apply for an increase in credit limit of your credit cards, then the credit card companies will check your credit record before raising the credit limit. If they find that you have bad credit then they may cancel your application. Bad credit may even cut your credit limits as the credit card companies will want you to spend less through credit cards. But, if you opt for bad credit repair, then by repairing your credit you can achieve higher credit limits for your credit cards.

Largely people do not buy penny stocks for the long term profit of the company. Rarely does one of these low priced companies become a profitable one that trades on the major exchanges. The majority of these companies fail and even more fail their investors. Those who trade penny stock often realize that there are many companies that are not telling the truth in their filings or their press releases. Weeding through the scam companies and constant dilution is the job of a penny trader.
This is not to say all penny stocks are bad, there are many companies really trying to blossom into great investments. A majority, although they’re bad investments, are great to trade during the ups and downs of the stock cycle. Most penny stock traders learn how to read charts to gain the most profit out of these cycles.
Remember, when you buy penny stocks, you’re making a trade. Know what you expect to happened with the stock price or based on news within the company. If you get the profit you were hoping for, don’t forget to sell. Also, if the stock fails to live up to your expectations, sell immediately.
Traders buy penny stocks for the profit. Whether it’s a long term profit or a short term one.  Don’t buy penny stocks if you don’t know what to expect or how to get out. You must trade with a plan. There are other articles here discussing what is a good entry price and when stocks are at their bottoms. Please read these articles and others before you buy penny stocks for the first time.

Credit cards are never a good idea; they are designed to encourage you to put more debt on the card. It always seems very easy to do, and many of us pay with a credit card every time we shop. You need to break the cycle of these spending habits, and realize that you need to pay off the cards once and for all. Whether you want to dig yourself out of debt, or keep out of it entirely, you will need to keep a track of your finances. The key to remaining out of debt too knows all of your financial matters, knowing exactly where your money is being spent each month. If you do not know these basic things about your cash flow, then how do you know how much you truly owe?

The first thing to do is track everything you spend in a month; it does not need to be a technical spreadsheet. By simply writing down every penny that you spend, will tell you exactly where your money is going. At the end of the month you will be able to see what you have spent and exactly what on. Once you know what you are spending then you can begin to deal with the problems you may have.

If you have more than one credit card, it is an idea to try and transfer all of the balances to one. This will make it more manageable if you know where all of your credit card debt is. Try and get rid of the most expensive interest rated card, by doing so you will cut your debt down. There are some good credit card deals for people who transfer balances, and this might be an idea for you. It will give you a six month period to pay the card off with no interest at all. You have to want to pay the credit card off though, there is no point taking up these great offers, purely to put more debt on the card.

If you can it is always an idea to pay the balance off your card every month, although this isn’t always possible. If you insist on having a credit card then try to only use it for emergencies, try to remember that it isn’t your money and every time you use it you are in effect spending more money then you should have done. In these worrying times, credit cards are being used to the extreme and people are getting weighed down with their debt. You must try as hard as you can to get out of the debt, and begin taking control of your finances and life.

The business information group said it expects gross lending to increase to £25.8bn next year, but only after a fall to £24bn (from £27bn) this year.

Think Money

Here are some of top rewards cards in Ireland:

• MBNA’s new Pigsback.com credit card. With 0% APR on balance transfers for 10 months and 2,000 PiggyPoints after your first card purchase, it’s pretty great. The APR isn’t bad either (14.9 % APR when this went into print). As for your reward? You get 1 PiggyPoint for every 2 Euros you spend on card purchases! It really does fair high on my list of best credit card deals in Ireland.
• SonyCard. For every € 1.5 you charge on the card, you receive one “pulsebeat.” You can get stuff free by using your pulsebeats. Sony offers over 600 products available for purchase with pulsebeats.
• Tesco’s Clubcard Credit Card. This card gets you one point for every €4 you spend. Sometimes it’s double points, but bear in mind each point is worth about only around 4cents when you redeem them. You can spend your points at Tesco stores or petrol stations. You can also use the clubcard vouchers as airmiles
• Sainsbury Credit Card. This card gives you two Nectar points for every €1 you spend in Sainsbury (for the first two years you hold the card). When you use the card elsewhere, you get one Nectar point for every €5 you spend. Each nectar point equals 0.5cents. You can use your vouchers at Sainsburys and Argos. You can also use them at certain restaurants, video stores, cinema tickets, and for airplane tickets.
• Play.com credit cards lets you earn points for spending at play.com and elsewhere. You get two playpoints for each €1 you spend at play.com. If you use your card elsewhere, you receive one playpoint for each €1. Five hundred playpoints equal €5. You can redeem your points at Play.com where you can buy DVDs, music, games, books, computers, electronics, and gadgets.
• Ulster Bank credit cards also offer YourPoints. But you only receive one point for every € 1 you spend. You can use YourPoints to make travel arrangements and you can get shopping vouchers for them.

Club owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett are believed to have extended the £290m RBS debt for another year, but agreed to pay back £60m.

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Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports owner BAA slumped to a loss of £545 million in the first six months of the year, as recession-hit travellers cut back on trips and its pension fund deficit ballooned.

The debt-laden operator, which is owned by Spanish building group Ferrovia, also said that it was still in ongoing talks with several potential buyers of Gatwick, despite recent reports that the two main bidders had walked away.

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One of the main reasons that people seek to live a frugal life is because they feel stressed out about money. The single biggest cause of that financial stress is debt. By learning how to reduce (and eventually eliminate) your debt, you can significantly reduce the amount of stress that you feel about money. This can lead to a much better experience with frugal living. One key method that you might use to reduce your debt is debt consolidation. Let’s take a closer look at what debt consolidation is all about.

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Read more: Is debt management a good idea?

Often, the best way to do that is to overpay - to pay more than you`re actually obliged to. However tempting it is to make just the minimum payments, it`s important to think long term and focus on the amount of interest you`ll be saving if you clear your store card debts early.

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Best way to clear store card debts

It might be because they’ve lost their job. It might be because they’ve seen their income fall, whether they’re earning less in terms of bonuses, commission or overtime, or because they’ve actually had to accept a pay-cut or shorter working hours. Or it might be because they’re simply worried about the effects of the recession - even people whose income hasn’t been affected at all by the recession are ‘tightening their belts’ and cutting back on non-essentials.

All this, of course, can have a knock-on effect. The less people spend in the shops, the worse individual businesses will do, which is clearly bad financial news for their own employees.

For people with debts, the thought of dealing with a reduced income can be particularly worrying. As well as rent/mortgage, utility bills, petrol, food and all their other essential expenses, they’ll need to keep up with their payments to unsecured debts. The monthly payments which seemed no problem a few months ago might suddenly be a real challenge.

They might even find they simply can’t stay on top of all their debts. In cases like this, debt management might be able to help. A debt management organisation may be able to negotiate with their unsecured lenders (credit cards, store cards, personal loans, etc.), asking them to consider accepting a few changes to their repayment terms so the individual can afford to keep up with their debt repayments.

For example, they may agree to accept lower payments, based on how much the individual can realistically afford once they’ve accounted for all their essential expenses.

And/or they may agree to reduce (or even freeze) the interest they’re charging on the debt, so the individual knows their payments are reducing the debt itself, rather than just the interest.

This can make a huge difference to the individual’s finances. Since their payments to their unsecured debts are based on their disposable income (what’s left after their essential expenses), they’ll know they can keep on making their payments to their mortgage/rent, so they won’t face the risk of eviction - a major worry for many people who are facing financial problems.

Having said that, reducing the size of their monthly payments will mean they’re repaying that debt more slowly. That means it’ll take longer to repay the debt - and unless their lenders reduce the interest rate by enough, it can cost more, as the debt will have longer to accrue interest.

Plus, a borrower’s credit rating can suffer if they fail to repay the debt as originally agreed - by negotiating lower monthly payments, for example - although there’s a chance this will already have happened, since a debt management plan isn’t an option unless they can’t afford to keep up with payments to their debts, so they may have already breached the repayment terms before their debt management plan even started.