A Bit About What I Do

So since leaving teaching, most people want to know, "What are you doing, Di?" And I tell them I help people get out from under credit card debt, which is the basic premise of my job. Overall, I'm a financial counselor. This means I offer advice on everything from budgeting to saving for big expenditures to avoiding bankruptcy. For most of my clients, though, I help set up repayment plans for their credit cards. We call them Debt Management Programs, or DMP's.

A DMP isn't something just anyone can get into. We, as an agency, act as a middle man between the consumer and their creditors. As that middle man, we are telling the consumer that they need to pay X number of dollars per month to satisfy their creditors. We also tell the creditors, hey, we're going to send X number of dollars to you per month for this client; given that payment schedule, the client will be paid in full with you in 5 years. So we're making promises to the creditors on behalf of the clients.

In order to do this and have any credibility, we need to make sure our clients can hold up their end of the bargain. That is, we do a full budget analysis - income vs. expenses, what do they have to put towards the debt, & is it enough? If the clients do not have enough money to pay for rent, food, gas, and all that stuff, plus a debt repayment, we won't sign them up for the DMP. What would be the point? We can see they can't afford it, and so it would be empty promises. Instead, we work on their budget to make it affordable. What could they cut down or cut out - dining out, entertainment, clothing spending sprees? There are often things that must be given up in order to gain something else. In this case, the gained thing is financial freedom from debt; usually worth giving something up!

What I like about working for this agency is that we're non-profit. Yes, we do charge a fee for our clients on a DMP, but it's small and goes directly towards our operating costs. It's not like those "consolidation" companies, who charge an arm and a leg up front and THEN help people with their debt. We actually get most of our funding from grants and donations, and a small piece from the government. So I feel pretty good at the end of most days, knowing I helped people rather than hurt them. I wonder if the "consolidators" even think of that?

Anyway, that's a bit about what I do. Sounds kind of boring on paper but as I meet with people and hear their stories, it's really never the same thing twice. Sure, there are some themes that repeat (overspending, bought a house they couldn't afford, etc.) but everyone is different, and that keeps it interesting.