The financial stories remain similar over the months and the years. With debts becoming a nuisance, people make resolutions and resolve to stand by these resolutions. But, once on a spending spree, little do they care for the resolutions that they made with so much efforts. Debts once again begin their run. And so do the resolutions.

How many months do you intend to continue this way? With the mounting debts, repayment becomes difficult. Bankruptcy suits are filed against the debtor and he loses his belongings to the creditors. If this is not what you plan to mirror in your life, then debt counselling will be strictly recommended.

Debt counselling is a help in the settlement of debts from a friend, relative, or an outside agency. Through debt counselling, individuals are educated about the disadvantages of debts, means to lessen the occurrence of debts, and methods of settlement of debts already incurred.

The underlying assumption in debt counselling is that if an individual wants he can surely improve his debt status. The contention of most people is that they do not know how they contract debts at the very first instance. Nevertheless, there is little to this argument other than an excuse. A proper management of the income can surely lead people out of debts.

Debt counselling requires the debtor and the counsellor to sit together for a counselling session. All matters related to the debts and the other aspects of the finances like the income that one receives, the expenditures- expected and unexpected, those requiring to be satisfied with priority, standard of living, etc. are discussed during the counselling session.

The counselling session may be undertaken in about two to three sessions. This is however dependant on the individual case factors and the counsellor chosen. Borrowers must be frank while describing their case to the counsellors because subjective elements are important in forming a conclusion.

There are basically five functions of debt counselling. In the following section we describe the functions in detail.