These are all creditors, whether it’s the bank, the electric company or the local newspaper, they all want one thing from you: money. There’s just one tiny little wrinkle: You don’t have enough to give them. With near 10% unemployment and hundreds of thousands more underemployed (i.e. working for fewer hours than they want to, or working for far less than they need in order to make an adequate living), more and more of us are falling behind on our debts. However, there is a solution to the nightmare. It’s called a debt management consultant. So what do debt management consultants do?

If you get yourself a reliable debt management consultant, they will do a variety of things to help you with your debt:

• Help you manage your money better. The first thing that a debt management consult should do for you is to help you make and stick to a realistic budget. You lost your job and you’re living on various part time wages? Yeah, it’s tough, but there are solutions to every problem. You’ll need to adjust your lifestyle, but it can be done and your debt management consultant will help you do it.

• Negotiate with your creditors. No, they will not get your debt settled for 35 cents on the dollar. And by the way, if they do tell you they can do that, run like hell – you’ve found yourself a con man. However, they can help you craft a strategy together with your creditors to lower your monthly payments, usually through lower interest rates so that you can try to catch up.

• Counsel you on managing your debt in the future. A quality debt management consultant will help you to manage your debt not only now, but in the future. They will do that by showing you when it pays to use your credit cards and when you’re better off paying cash (hint: buying your groceries on credit is a big no no. That will only sink you deeper and deeper into debt since they’re gone and consumed long before you pay for them).