So what to do if you do not have enough money to pay all your bills? The first thing you must do is to decide what bills you should pay first and deal with you debts.
Track your budget. You should put in order you finances and develop your budget. It is very important to take control over your expenses and understand how much money you get and how much you spend: list all your income and all your expenses. It is important to write down not only your fixed expenses (mortgage, rent payments, car loans, electric, water, heat bills, insurance bills, court ordered payments and of course food), but also expenses that can vary (closing, entertainment, recreation, cable television). By tracking all your expenses you will understand what expenses are unnecessary and create a plan to save your money and after all pay down all your debts.
The order of paying bills. Now it is important to start paying your bills. But what order you have to choose in order to pay them? The fixed expenses must be paid first. First of all you should think and understand what is important right now for your living. Housing expenses come first as every person needs a place to live in. You also need some food to eat. Credit card payments and other insignificant bills should be at the bottom of your debt list. It is better to pay some amounts towards all your bills, of course if you have money. You can also develop a special strategy for debt repayment. Think about how to pay each bill: maybe paying smaller amounts over a long time period will help you to maintain your financial situation until your financial matters change.
Contact your creditors. You should immediately contact your creditors if you have troubles paying the bills as far as lack of knowledge can lead you to a court. You must be honest with them and try to explain the occurred situation. It is better to let them know beforehand about the problems you have and get some help than to avoid your creditors and sooner or later your bills will be sent to collections and you will definitely not get any help. Some creditors can compromise and develop a repayment scheme that can satisfy both sides. You can even offer your creditors your own scheme of repayments, the one you can afford. If they do not want to accept it and will take you to court, it will set the repayments that you will be able to afford.
Increase your income. Try to find any ways of increasing your income. You can find a part-time job or refuse something that you do not obligatory need: second car, landline or cell phone, cable television, etc. You can sell something that you do not need and return something you haven’t been used. Try to get any extra income you can in order to improve your financial situation.
Debt collections. Remember that you have certain rights, if your bills have gone to the collections. Debt collectors can contact you only from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. They cannot contact you at inappropriate times or places or call you at work unless you agree with it. It is forbidden to threat or to use indecent language. They are obliged to send a validation notice and explain how much money you owe and to whom.
Begin paying your credit cards. Once you have paid all your main payments such as housing, transportation, taxes, you can start paying your credit cards bills. It is very important to maintain your credit history clean and avoid high fees. If you have several credit cards bills and you cannot pay them all at once, try to pay at least the minimum payments just to keep the account current. If you do not have the enough sum of money to realize even the minimum payments on all of your credit cards, you have to choose and assign priorities. You can make some steps towards limiting the negative impact. Check all your cards in order to find if there are any grace periods. If there is a grace period, you have several extra days until the last payday that will help you to avoid a late payment. But remember that the main consequence of being late with the payment is that the credit card company can increase your interest rate.
If you do all the mentioned above, you have a lot of chances to get back on your feet and improve your finances very quickly. Once you are back again, take some reasonable steps in order to pay everything back as quickly as possible.
Eventually, in future you should try to make all the payments and settle all your bills in full and on time. Making late payments should not become a habit for you as it can cause only big troubles for you and your family. Unfortunately, financial problems can occur to everyone and it is not always possible to pay all your bills dead on time, but you should do your best. If you are unable to pay your bills too often, it is time to calm down and think about your financial situation in order to make some proper changes to you personal financial management. Take a closer look at your expenses in order to get out of this rut. Stay calm and do not panic, try to do all your best in order to work out an effective plan of action.
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