So What IS Christian Debt Consolidation?

This question, just what is Christian Debt Consolidation is really what is behind me starting this site. I know what debt consolidation is, that's essentially where a company can give a fixed, hopefully lower interest loan to combine two, three or more credit card and other loan balances. There are many advantages to debt consolidation.

The first big advantage is only having a single payment to make on your outstanding debts instead of multiple payments. When you are trying to eliminate your credit card debt, one of the challenges that can be most troubling is the constant struggle to make a good sized payment on each card to at least keep up with the interest, but hopefully to whittle down on your balance. When you have 3, 4 or more loans that have different payment due dates you can have the feeling of being nibbled away at constantly, every month. It's much like an army fighting a war on several fronts. Things become much simpler if there is only ONE payment to make.

The second potential advantage of debt consolidation is that you may be able to get a lower interest rate than your existing credit card rates. Many credit cards carry outrageous interest rates of 20% and more which can be crippling and make the prospects of paying down your balance all the more challenging. If you are able to get a lower debt consolidation loan rate then you may save hundreds of dollars a year in interest charges.

It may not be possible to get a significantly lower interest rate and in some cases your debt consolidation loan rate may be higher than your current individual interest rates are. If this is the case you will have to carefully weigh the advantages of combining to have one payment with the extra money you will be paying on interest.

While many people can find debt consolidation to be a helpful way to get out of credit card debt, there are other pitfalls to watch out for. The first and perhaps biggest danger of them all is if you combine credit card balances into a debt consolidation loan, be careful NOT to start building a NEW balance on your credit cards. The best advice here is to cut the cards up, or at the very least tuck them away at home for safe keeping and don't carry them with you. You need to resolve to use either cash or checks for your future purchases if at all possible and for those rare times when credit card is your only choice, go ahead and set aside the cash to pay the total either before your statement comes with the online payment that many cards offer, or once the statement comes.

So, we've talked about debt consolidation, what about Christian debt consolidation? What sets these companies apart? Many of these companies have an open statement of faith, so that a Christian knows they are doing business with a company that believes in God. We can hope as well that these companies strive to work ethically according to God's laws. I suspect that these companies may be able to help with counseling resources related to the OTHER affects that massive debt can have on our lives. These other affects can include depression, low self-esteem, stress, fatigue, working too much, damaged relationships. They also, I think, will understand that for many Christians' bankruptcy is not an option that they are comfortable with and that is why they are looking for the lifeline of debt consolidation. I can only speak for myself, but as a Christian I feel it is my duty to pay back what I have promised to pay.

I also would go as far to say that as a Christian, I would not be comfortable dealing with a company that was willing to "negotiate down" what I owed to the credit card companies. I ran up the bill, I should be responsible for paying it all. The idea of getting a company to accept less than what I owe doesn't feel right to me.

All of that said, I don't know for a fact that the above is what Christian Debt Consolidation companies are doing. That's the reason for this site. I want to research and write about the different debt consolidation companies that advertise for Christian debt consolidation and see what services they provide, how they are viewed and what about their services make it Christian. So, we'll likely find the answer to what is Christian debt consolidation as we continue with this site.