Reduce Debt Faster

Reduce Debt Faster is incredibly excited to be the host for this week’s edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction.  This carnival always features informative and insightful articles from some pretty awesome writers and personal finance bloggers around the web, and this week is no exception.  If you need a debt reduction plan, this is the place to look.

While there were a lot of great submissions for this edition, as this week’s host I will do my best to stick to the submission rules.  Submitted articles should be on the topic of reducing debt – particularly personal stories of debt reduction or strategies for getting out of debt.  Unfortunately, I had to exclude some fantastic articles because they were slightly off topic.  If your submission is not included, feel free to contact me and I will be happy to feature your article somewhere else on this site.

Now, on to the articles!  First, I would like to highlight a couple of my personal favorites.  Keep in mind that this not a “ranking” of any sort.  All of this weeks featured articles are very good, but these are just a few that really caught my attention.

• J.D. from the very informative and very popular blog Get Rich Slowly submitted The Perfect is the Enemey of the Good.  This article really hit home with me, and I think it will for many of you as well.  If you find yourself spending lots of time reading or thinking about getting out of debt, but haven’t made much actual progress, then you should definitely take a look at this entry.  In fact, this article applies to so much more than just personal finance.  If you are the type to read and research much more than you actually take action, I encourage you to read this.

• The Smarter Wallet’s post, Debt Advice By Jean Chatzky, The Smart Cookies Money Group, presented what I think is a very good idea for many people: creating a group for people dedicated to making smart money decisions and getting out of debt.  While many of us are ashamed to discuss the fact that we are in debt, most of us could probably use a little support from friends in the same or similar situation.  Plus, a group like will help you realize that you are not the only one in debt or who has made financial mistakes in the past.

• Free Money Finance submitted a post called Know Your Rights Against Debt Collectors.  The title is fairly self explanatory, but the article is worth a read.  If you are dealing with debt collectors, you need to know your rights or there is a good chance they will get abused.  This article touches on the Fair Debts Collection Practices act, the set of federal laws that governs the actions of debt collection agencies, as well as various state laws that protect consumers.

• Finally, Damon Day submitted The Association of Settlement Companies – TASC – An Introduction.  This article is actually the first in a series exploring the truth behind The Association of Settlement Companies (TASC).  Many consumers look at pretty little logos and membership in trustworthy sounding companies such as this and assume it means a business can be trusted.  This article does a good job of pointing out the fallacies in that logic and explores what it really means to be a member of TASC.

Here are a few more awesome entries for this week’s carnival:

Raise the Bridge or Lower the Water, this week’s submission from LeanLifeCoach, explores the two approaches to paying down debt: increasing income or lowering expenses.  Jim from Bargaineering submitted How To Get A Low Interest Rate APR on Credit Card Debt and includes some great tips on getting a lower interest rate on credit cards.  Over at The Digerati Life, we have a post that explores How Our Consumer Debt Problems Got Out of Control.  And finally,  Foreigners Finances submitted a bit of an unconventional but very interesting article, Meditation and Debt: How 10 Minutes Can Fix Your Money Problems.

That does it for this edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction.  Thanks again for all who contributed and submitted posts.  We hope all of our readers find these articles educational and useful.