Most companies especially utility ones do not start charging interest rates before one year has passed, so if you try to draw up a program where you pay your current bills and something extra every month to cover your older bills than most companies will definitely be happy to help you as most probably they would have already been contemplating court action or some other type of debt recovery program that would in the end cost them more money than probably you would owe them!

I suggest you first write to your creditors explaining that you are experiencing some financial difficulty but that you are more than willing to pay your debts. If you have already started receiving some reminders or worse final notices about your accumulating debts than now is the perfect time to sit down with your creditors and try to negotiate some new terms that will get you out of the vicious circle that you got yourself into. Being in debt does not have to be a permanent situation it’s only a temporary lifestyle that could definitely be improved upon with some willingness to do so on your part.

If on the other hand these companies already started pursuing you and sending you threatening letters and especially if they started making phone calls demanding money, do not let them bully you into forcing you to promise them that you are going to give them the money you owe them. The first step in the negotiations begins with answering back to these letters and telephone calls with another letter to their chief credit controller explaining your position but most important of all do not make any type of promises especially if you know that you cannot keep them.

When you are writing or talking to your creditors always include your full details and any account numbers that may help them track you, remember some debt collection agencies may have thousands of accounts. If a creditor has already sometime wrote to you always remember to include the same reference code that he suggested in his letter.

You should always give reasons why you are not making any payments, you can refer to your budget, income or any other expenses you may have and let the creditor know why you cannot pay the amounts being requested you can also ask the creditors to freeze your interest or at least charge a very low interest rate.