Waiting For Help To Come

There is an old joke about a fellow whose house has been flooded, and he is sitting on the roof and a guy comes along in a boat and says to him, get in, the guy on the roof says no God will save me.  Then a while later a larger boat comes as the flood waters have risen even more and the guy is now standing in water on his house, and people in the larger boat say get in, we’ll save you.  The guy says, no God will save me.  Then as the flood waters rise even more a helicopter flies overhead and throws down a line and says climb up, we’ll save you.  The guy once again says, no God will save me.  Soon the flood waters rise even more and the poor fellow drowns, dead.  He goes to Heaven, stands before God and asks, God why did you not save me from the flood??  God answers back, I sent two boats and a helicopter to save you, what more could I do!

The point of this is that when we experience money problems/debt issues, we wait.  We wait on average around nine (9) months to do anything, then take an additional five (5) weeks to act on it.In most instances we could have saved ourselves a lot of headaches and stress, by acting on the problem much sooner.

Once you fall into arrears with a loan or debt, you lose a bit of control over the situation.  If you begin receiving calls from a collector, who may demand payment in full, or push you to make promises you cannot keep, or payments you cannot make, you are losing a little bit more control over the situation. If it gets to the point of bailiffs being sent out, or court orders, etc, again, more control over the situation is lost.

You need to regain control, and by looking into some form of debt management, you are regaining control.  Even by going bankrupt, which is basically relinquishing control by stating you are insolvent, and having your finances dictated by the courts, you regain some control as you no longer have to deal with or be manipulated by your creditors.

You need to begin with a plan of action.  Sit down, put pen to paper and see who you owe and how much.  Do a detailed spending plan of what your basic and priority expenses are and how much you have left for the debts.And if need be, get professional advice!  It never hurts to speak to a debt adviser and see what their take is on your situation.  It may not be as bad as you think, but then again, it could be worse and the sooner they can advise you, the sooner you can get your life back.

So if you feel the flood waters rising, get in the boat, or grab the line from the helicopter.