Prioritize, Don’t Panic, When You Can’t Pay Your Bills
By now, we have all heard about the quadrant of tasks. Some are important and urgent, some are important but not urgent, others are urgent but not important, and the last group is tasks that are neither important nor urgent. Time management advice content will tell you how to deal with them; the solutions involve various combinations of eliminating, automating, delegating, and directly addressing the tasks that compete for your time. This content is probably the last thing you want to think about now. Having more tasks, many of them paid, competing for your time than you have time to complete sounds like high class worries. Time management is for people with jobs. Since you lost your job, or one of your several jobs, you can no longer pay your bills. You are afraid to get the mail, answer phone calls, or even open emails or text messages. The loneliness of people who have no time to catch up with their friends is nothing compared to the loneliness of wondering whether you will lose access to your phone and all your contacts because you can’t pay your phone bill. Remember that, for the time being, it is better to pay some of your bills than to pay none of them. Pay what you can, and then, to find a more sustainable solution to your debt problems, contact a Boca Raton debt lawyer.
Pay Your Bills in Order of Importance, Not Urgency
If you can only afford to pay some of your bills this billing cycle, rank them in order of importance, not urgency. It can be tempting to pay the creditor that calls and texts you all the time, just to get them to stop stressing you out, but that will only cause more stress, by making it even harder to afford necessities. First, make sure that you have enough food to eat, whether that means buying groceries or getting food from food banks. Next, pay for housing; being late paying your rent or mortgage is worse than falling behind on other bills, because it can lead to you being kicked out of your housing. The next bill to pay is your utility bill, because without it, you would not have air conditioning. Next come secured debts, where you would lose your car or some other asset if you did not pay. The last priority is unsecured debts, such as credit cards and BNPL bills, and medical debt.
Remember that your goal is to buy time. After you have paid the bills you can afford to pay, contact the other creditors. Ask for more time or a payment plan to pay the overdue balance in installments. Finally, contact a lawyer to talk about debt settlement and bankruptcy options, and research debt consolidation loans.
Work With a Debt Lawyer About Keeping a Cool Head When Creditors Are Hot on Your Trail
A South Florida debt lawyer can help you find a way to cope with your bills, even if you can’t pay them all this billing period. Contact Nowack & Olson, PLLC in Boca Raton, Florida to discuss your case.
Source:
jackiebeck.com/when-you-cant-pay-your-bills/
