Being buried under debt is a serious problem. Nevertheless, it is not a dead-end situation. Before your debt problem gets worse or out of control, here are valuable tips on the steps you should do if you have bad credit.

Seek counseling. For some people, their debt problems are caused by uncontrolled spending, lavish lifestyles and mismanagement of their finances. If such is your case, it is best to seek help from a trusted credit counseling agency. A legitimate credit counseling agency will help you find ways on how you can get rid of your debts and how you can improve your budgeting skills.

Talk to your creditors. Usually, a borrower's first instinct is to hide from his creditors. But ignoring your debts or hiding from your creditors will only aggravate your situation. If you fail to submit a payment on time, don't wait for the creditor to try to contact you. Instead, contact your creditor yourself and advise them that you may be late with your payment and explain your situation. Ask for an extension and in most cases, a creditor would be willing to give you more time to submit your payment.

Watch out for prepayment penalties. If you obtained a mortgage loan from a subprime lender, read the fine print! Many subprime lenders included prepayment penalty fees in their contracts. These fees can cost you thousands of dollars. If you think that paying your loan ahead of time will ease you of your obligations, you may find yourself stuck in deeper debts because of the additional prepayment penalty fee.

Be consistent with your payments. The importance of paying all your creditors on time cannot be overemphasized. This is especially true at the first sign of debt problems. Don't let your debts go out of control by keeping up with your payments dutifully. A single late payment on one of your credit card accounts can cost you a sizeable interest rate plus a late penalty charge. Also many creditors have adopted a policy where if you are late on payment of one credit card, and it doesn't have to be the credit card they issued to you, it can be ANY credit card you own, they can all increase the interest rate they are charging you.

Don't use your credit card for cash advances. Never use your credit card to take out a cash advance unless it's really an emergency and there's no other way for you to get money. Cash advances are not included in your credit card's grace period and will cost you high interest rates and transaction fees the moment you take out your cash.

Stay away from ?home rescue? scams. Scammers take advantage of people facing a debt problem especially those who are facing foreclosure by offering to buy your home fast. Unfortunately its usually at a lower price than what your home is worth. They also promise that you don't have to shoulder your unpaid mortgages. This is a trick and will only bring you more debts and pain than you can imagine.