If you're filing bankruptcy, you will likely want to hire an attorney. But for debt settlement, a company is sufficient, or as I said, you can often do the legwork on your own.

If you're filing bankruptcy, you will likely want to hire an attorney. But for debt settlement, a company is sufficient, or as I said, you can often do the legwork on your own.

A little personality goes a long way.

In about one-third of credit card consolidations, within a short period of time, the cards come back out of the wallet, and in no time at all, they're charged back up. Then you're in an even worse position, because you have the credit card debt and the consolidation loan to worry about. You're in a hole that's twice as deep - and twice as steep.

Most people don't know this, but if you settle a debt for less than the amount you owed, you are potentially responsible for taxes on the forgiven debt. Look at it this way: You received goods and services for the full amount of debt, but you're only paying for a portion of it - sometimes less than 50%. Anything more than $600 is generally considered taxable, but the IRS will sometimes waive the tax if you can prove that your assets were less than your liabilities when the debt was settled.

You must be sure - and I mean absolutely positive - that you have the willpower to pay off those credit cards and not use them again.

You can have a do-over starting today. But you have to get over the feeling that it's too late