Do it yourself

There is no reason why you can not put a debt management plan in place for yourself. If you want to do this, you will first need to understand your income and expenditure and work out what you can afford to pay your creditors. To find out how to calculate your monthly expenditure budget have a look at the Beat My Debt debt management plan living expenses guide.

You then need to contact your creditors, explain your situation to them and negotiate the reduced monthly payments which you can afford.

Use a debt management company

A debt management company will negotiate a plan on your behalf and than manage the ongoing payments for you. The advantages of using a debt management company are:

- A single point of contact to deal with all of your creditors 
- Significant time saved with an experianced organisation undertaking the negotiatons for you
- You make a single monthly payment which is shared between your creditors on your behalf. 

If you want to use this kind of service, please contact Beat My Debt and we can organise this for you. Remember, you will have to pay fees for a debt management company to take on your case.

Debt Management Plan charities

You can also discuss implementing a debt management plan with a charity such as the CAB or CCCS.

The CCCS will often implement and manage a debt management plan for you for free. However there may be a significant waiting period to speak to an advisor and there is little evidence that they will have any more success than a commercial debt management company in negotiating the freezing of interest or charges.

Expert articles

To read articles about debt management plans written by our experts please click on the expert articles and news link in the "Useful Links" box below.