Are Debt Reduction Seminars Worth the Money?
Have you ever gotten those mailings that have two tickets in them for you to come to a hotel and sit through a seminar on how to make money, reduce your debt, buy real estate or the like? It appears one person had a question about them.
Q: I’m wondering what you think about those debt reduction courses that are offered through seminars or online, and claim that you can be debt free in under 7 years, including your mortgage?
A: I would say that you can find the same information through books in the library and searching online for things that you need answers to.
It may be appealing to plunk down some money and think you are getting all the answers in one shot, but I think you will find that searching online, not only saves you money that can go toward your debt, but you will also learn at a pace that allows everything to sink in.
I think you will find that most ‘œgurus’ end up advocating the following steps in varying order:
1. Stop using credit cards
2. Write down your debt, what you owe and what you bring in
3. Live below your means
4. Sell stuff to make extra money and help pay down debt
5. Get a second job if you have run out of things to sell.
6. Save money for emergencies
The gurus make the money on expanding these ideas, I believe you can find the information for free and in the end become your own guru.
Though if you would like some place to start you can look at the library for Dave Ramsey, Mary Hunt or just cruise the 332.0 section of your library for personal finance books.
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Dawn C. is site owner of Frugalforlife.com where this is a repost from: Debt Reduction Seminars. Dawn is residing in Colorado with her spouse, Teri, of 11 years.
Avoiding debt reduction workshops may be the first step of getting out of debt. While not every seminar is a scam, I agree with the advice that there is plenty of free advice online, in the library, and with friends who have been there that there is no need to pay for a seminar. Save the money you’d spend on a seminar and start a savings plan and a good budget. Pay attention to the people who are puttng their real life experiences online to becoming debt-free. There is no “diet pill solution” to getting rid of debt – you have to work at it.
Dawn: I agree… it just doesn’t make sense to pay for something that you can get for free by doing research via the Internet and making use of the public library.
I like your advice to debtors to have them get the answers from books or online rather than go to seminars. And you are right to give them those six steps which will be similar to what the other gurus will tell them and the same thing when it comes to seminar and besides, they will have to sell them something.
Evelyn Guzman
Debt Challenger
I agree. I recently attended (and paid for) a talk given by a guy who claimed to shave off years and tonnes of $ from our mortgage.
It turned out to be just a case of paying extra every month in addition to the minimum payments. But he managed to slot in some mumbo jumbo about how complicated loan agreements are and unless we are “knowledgeable and experts” like he claimed to be, the banks would still screw us.
A number of people did sign up for the service.