In this article I going to cover the two do it yourself option to help you get out of debt once and for all.

DIY Debt Plan

First off, you may want to look into setting up your own debt plan.  To do this all you need to do is gather up all your debts and setup a spread sheet ranking your debts from the highest debt to the lowest debts balance.

Then start paying off you lowest debt first and add an extra $50 to $100 to that debt only and pay the minimum on the rest of your debts.  Then once the first debt is paid in full continue onto the next debt except this time roll up the $100 plus the payment you were paying on the last debt.

Doing this will speed you up to getting out of debt.  However their are two rules you must follow in order to make this plan run smoothly.  First, always pay your mortgage last and second when all your debts are paid off  save enough money back for a 6 month emergency fund.  This will help you from falling back into debt again.

DIY Debt Consolidation

The second option is to do your own do it yourself debt settlement plan.  This process is almost the same as the last.  To start grab all of your debts and line them up from highest balance to the lowest.

Then, call your creditor with highest balance first.  Explain to them you are having a tough time paying off your debts and would like to negotiate a deal.  A lot of times creditors may not be willing to cut the balance but may be able to cut the interest on your debt.

If times are tough anything is worth the shot.  From their move on to the next debt and so on.  A couple of things you should know as well is that this options works better when  you are in a financial hardship, if you only have a couple hundred dollars of debt on a credit card your creditors will probably be less likely to do anything for you.

2. It will prevent huge losses.  Using a trading system will help you to place stop losses. In case a stock falls below a certain price level, the stop loss will then be triggered in order to prevent or to cut off losses. The stop loss is a critical point for anyone.  The stop loss system helps to eliminate the decision making that will often come with investing in the stock market.  Just be sure to move your stop loss up as the price of the stock goes up.

3. A stock trading system will save time.  If you decide to use a fully automated stock trading system, then basically you do not need to do anything. The system will be the one to automatically place the entire sell and buy orders on your behalf, this where the trading system will help you save a lot time.

4. Easy tracking of your portfolio.  A stock trading system will help you to easily manage as well as to track your portfolio. You can even check the average price that you bought a stock, or the current price of the stock, and also how much was your profit as well as your losses that you are making on a particular stock investment.

The first similarity is that you can choose to fund the individual 401k with pre-tax earnings. This is similar to a standard IRA. You can instead opt to fund it with post-tax dollars, as in a Roth IRA. This is a very nice feature. With a standard, company-sponsored 401k plan, you only get to use pre-tax dollars. Another excellent feature of an individual 401k plan is that you get to contribute more than in a group plan. Since to the government you are both employee and employer, you can contribute up to $46,000 in a calendar year.

There are a few items in the minus column when it comes to individual 401k versus company-sponsored 401k plans. First the choices of funds to use is limited. Regular 401ks and standard IRAs have what seems like a universe of possible funds to pick. Not so with individual 401ks and this is because the paperwork, the bureaucracy, is a bit heavy so not every house wants to bother with offering this sort of plan.

Fees are another minus. The solo 401k fees are higher. This makes sense, if you think about it. With a group 401k, the fees are spread around among hundreds of employees. With an individual 401k, it is just you. So when you are shopping for a brokerage house, ask about the fees and don’t stop asking until you have all the facts.

For my money, the benefits of opening an solo 401k far outweigh the detriments. The flexibility and the increased contributions alone make it worthwhile, in my book. If you are on the fence, trying to decide what to do, just take a moment and imagine yourself on the golf course in 25 years. As you tee off, you think back to the day you decided to get serious about saving for retirement and you break into a big smile.