Deal with Your Debt: Free Yourself from What You Owe, Updated and Revised

Product Author Bios

LIZ WESTON (Los Angeles, Ca.), an award-winning personal finance columnist, is one of the Internet's most-read money experts. The New York Times called her The 10 Commandments of Money a"wonderful basic personal finance book...[with] enough counterintuitive ideas to keep even people who know a bit about personal finance reading further." Her bestseller Your Credit Score is now in its Fourth Edition. Her columns run twice weekly on MSN Money, and her Money Talk Q-and-A appears in print nationwide, from the LA Times to Stars and Stripes. She has appeared on Dr. Phil, NBC Nightly News, the Today Show, CNBC Power Lunch, and Marketplace Money. Her books also include There Are No Dumb Questions About Money.

Struggling with debt? Get realistic help that's actually useful, from Liz Weston, one of the most popular and respected personal finance experts! Today, people struggling with debt have far fewer options: lenders are stingier, which makes it harder to avert disaster, or to recover from setbacks like foreclosure, short sales, or bankruptcy. (Meanwhile, people with good credit have more options than ever, including some of the lowest interest rates in decades.) You need an up-to-date guide that can help you assess options, find help, discover opportunities, and take action that works. Liz Weston's Deal with Your Debt, Updated and Revised Edition is that guide. Weston reveals why most "conventional wisdom" about debt is just dead wrong. For most people, it's simply impractical to pay off every dime of debt, and live forever debt free. In fact, doing that can leave you a lot poorer in the long run. You're more likely to give up, or pay off the wrong debts. You could leave yourself too little flexibility to survive a financial crisis. You could neglect saving for retirement. You might even wind up in bankruptcy -- just what you're trying to avoid! For most people, it's smarter to control and manage debt effectively. In this extensively updated guide, Weston shows how to do that. You'll learn which debts can actually help build wealth over time, and which are simply toxic. You'll find up-to-date, real-world strategies for assessing and paying off debt, money-saving insights on which debts to tackle first, and crucial information about everything from debt consolidation loans to credit scores and credit counseling. Weston offers practical guidelines for assessing how much debt is safe -- and compassionate, realistic guidance if you've gone beyond the safety zone. If you've ever worried about debt, you'll find the new edition of Deal with Your Debt absolutely indispensable.

Table of Contents

Introduction     xvi

Chapter 1 Isn’t Debt-Free the Way to Be?      1

Chapter 2 Your Debt Management Plan     15

Chapter 3 Credit Cards     39

Chapter 4 Mortgages     63

Chapter 5 Home Equity Borrowing     85

Chapter 6 Student Loans     99

Chapter 7 Auto Loans     119

Chapter 8 401(k) and Other Retirement Plan Loans     133

Chapter 9 Loans You Don’t Want to Get--or Give     147

Chapter 10 Dealing with a Debt Crisis     159

Chapter 11 Putting Your Debt Management Plan into Action     177

Index     195