Downtown Austin, Texas
Credit counseling and debt management from an office on Lavaca Street. A counselor goes through what you owe line by line, and you decide what happens next.
How it goes
The first of these commits you to nothing at all.
The call
A counselor picks up and asks what you owe and to whom. There's no credit check to have that conversation, and you don't need to own a home. Phones are answered from 7:30 in the morning Monday through Thursday, and on Saturday mornings, because the call is easier to make outside work hours.
The list
The counselor writes down each debt, its balance, and what it costs you each month. Most people have never seen the whole list in one place. That page is the actual work, and it's what any decision afterwards gets made against.
The plan
If a debt management plan fits, your creditors get paid through the agency and you make a single payment each month instead of many. You get receipts from the agency and from each creditor. The plan runs month to month, so you can leave it, and paying it off early costs nothing extra.
What the file can hold
These names get used interchangeably everywhere else. They aren’t the same thing, so here is what each one actually means before you ring anyone.
Start here
Several bills, several due dates, several minimum payments. Consolidation puts them behind one payment a month so there's one date to remember and one amount to plan around.
The structure
The formal version of the same idea. A counseling agency holds the plan and distributes your payment to each creditor, and you get the receipts showing where every penny went that month.
Before any plan
Understanding what you're actually carrying, building a budget that survives a real month, and only then deciding whether a plan is the right answer. Plenty of people don't need one.
Fixed terms
None of these are predictions about how your case turns out. They're the terms the program runs on, and they don't change once you're in it.
A+
Better Business Bureau rating
No
credit check to enroll
None
long term contract
$0
fee for paying off early
Why a counseling office
The usual answer to several debts is one more debt: a consolidation loan that pays the others off and leaves you owing a lender instead. That can work, and it can also move the problem somewhere with a longer term on it.
A counseling agency isn’t lending you anything. It sits between you and the people you already owe, takes one payment a month, and distributes it. What you get back each month is a set of receipts, from the agency and from each creditor, so every penny is accounted for. If a plan isn’t right for you, the counselor is free to say so, which is the part a lender can never do.
Before you call
If yours isn’t here, the office is open from 7:30 in the morning most weekdays and on Saturday mornings. Asking costs nothing.
700 Lavaca Street, Suite 1488
One call and you’ll at least know what you’re carrying. A counselor will go through it with you, and nothing gets signed on a first call.