Drowning in debt isn’t the best thing in the world, but if you find yourself in it, that’s okay.  There are plenty of ways to help yourself get out of debt, especially when you don’t know what to do.  Like many people around, you’re going to find that when you’re new to anything, it’s going to be hard to get the information that you need to help better understand something.

So, where can you turn to find debt assistance?  Here are 5 steps that I would take, in order to better yourself.

#1 Inform yourself - What I would start out by doing is inform yourself.  You can start right where you are today.  Visit our debt archive and try to read as many articles as you can.  The more you know, the better it’s going to be, when you’re looking to fight off your debt.

#2 Start organizing - Services like DebtGoal are amazing.  They can help you manage your finances, making it a lot easier to show you where your money is going.  When you start to organize yourself, you can soon find out that you can save hundreds, if not thousands on your debt.

#3 Consider third parties – 3rd party companies such as Lexington Law can help you do all the dirty work.  They will usually charge a small fee, but what they will do is consolidate all of your debt, and send you one bill each month, making it a lot easier for you to pay your bills and make sure you’re on the right track.

#4 Get credit counseling - There are many non-profit, as well as for-profit counseling agencies out there that will help you with your debt.  What you can do is check with your local church, or even do a search online in your local area to see where you can find help.  These counselors will generally get you on the right path, and tell you what you’re doing both right and wrong.

#5 Ask for family help - This one I really don’t like, but it can be an option.  You may want to ask some close family members for money.  You don’t want to reach out to those that don’t talk to you, because you will find out that they will really think differently of you.  Instead, explain your situation and let them know what’s going on.  Work out a repayment plan, and even sign a contract if you have to.

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to get assistance.  While assistance can be good, I would recommend that you look into informing yourself, so you can pick out what you’re doing both right and wrong with your own finances.  This way, in the future, you can prevent this from happening all over again.