Self Help

• Your credit debt is manageable if you have a dependable income and room in your budget for severe cutbacks. Cut out all optional expenses, like dining out or traveling. Add the saved money to your highest rate account payments, and transfer high interest balances to lower interest credit cards if possible, the Motley Fool financial website advises. Do not run up additional credit card debt until your balances are significantly paid down.
  
  

Professsional Debt Management

• Credit counseling companies offer professional debt management services. Some of these firms are nonprofit and work with you in person or through phone calls or the Internet, if you cannot easily visit an office, according to the FTC. A credit counselor assesses your finances and recommends anything from budgeting to paying bills through a structured debt management plan. Such plans are administered by counseling firms and focus on getting you debt free within about three to five years. The Better Business Bureau website recommends using a licensed firm that belongs to a professional credit counseling organization.
  
  

Bankruptcy

• Bankruptcy is a dependable debt solution because it either eliminates most of your financial obligations or sets up a court-ordered repayment plan. The FTC advises that it also damages your credit rating and appears on Experian, Equifax and TransUnion credit bureau reports for 10 years. Bankruptcy courts force you to undergo credit counseling before filing and debt management training before your case is completed.
  
  

Warning

• Professional credit repairers claim to wipe out some or all your bad credit history or start new credit files for you. The FTC warns against hiring them because legally they cannot fulfill these promises. Accurate negatives in your Experian, Equifax and TransUnion reports must stay for seven years, and the bureaus ignore baseless disputes about such items. You run the risk of legal problems if you let an unscrupulous credit repairer get an employer identification number for you to use for credit applications, according to the FTC. Some repair firms just take your money and do nothing at all, even though they are not supposed to legally accept payment before performing services.