Lowdown on Debt Consolidation

When I started this blog, I was faced with a challenge of getting my name out there in front of people and trying to capture their attention with quality content.

One tool that has been invaluable in that process is participating in Blog Carnivals and one that I have recently begun to participate in is the Carnival of Debt Management hosted at Debt Consolidation News. While it is a relatively new carnival, it has been full of outstanding posts from many popular personal finance blogs.

Since I have enjoyed participating in this new carnival, it came as a pleasant surprise when I received a notice that Debt Consolidation News had submitted a request for me to review the site. As a notice to my readers, this post is a paid review of Debt Consolidation News.

Background Information
Debt Consolidation News provides news, tips and resources related to debt consolidation and debt management. The site has been active for a little bit less than a year, with the first post about the need to be careful with debt consolidation plans coming on June 3rd, 2006.

Given that the site is a resource for news, it is not surprising to see that many posts provide a link to more detailed articles. Unlike many news sites, Debt Consolidation News takes the time to add their own personal insight to the topic of the article rather than simply regurgitating the article content.

Providing Details
In recent months, I’ve noticed that the posts are providing an outstanding level of detail and often present both sides of various financial decisions leaving the reader to make their own conclusions. To get yourself a taste of what I mean, check out these recent posts:

• Debt Consolidation: Good or Bad Idea?
• How to Negotiate with Creditors to Avoid Bankruptcy
• Getting to Black: 100 Tips to Cut Small Business Overhead and Reach Profitability

Real Value in the Tips
As I mentioned earlier, I have started participating in the Carnival of Debt Management hosted here but some of the most valuable posts that I have found are in the Helpful Tips category.

While you will find numerous posts with tips that can help you manage your finances and get yourself out of debt, there are a few posts that I want to pay particular attention to because they provide so many great tips that you can implement immediately to change your situation.

• 101 Ways to Cut Your Daily Costs
• 50 Surefire Tips to Establish Financial Security
• 33 Surefire Tips to Financial Prosperity

Read through those posts and I am sure you will find a handful of things that you can start doing today that can save you money and start you on the road to improving your financial situation.

Not All Roses
As much as I enjoy the content and carnivals at Debt Consolidation News, there are some things that I would like to see done a little bit differently.

The first enhancement that I think would be a great addition would be to introduce the ability to search the site. As the site continues to grow, not having a search feature will make it more difficult to find some of the older posts that still hold a lot of value to new readers.

Another enhancement that I would like to see is a count of posts within each category and each month in the archive. As a reader, I find it to be nice when I know what to expect when clicking a link. If a category doesn’t list a count, I may be disappointed to only find one or two posts in that category. Although that is certainly not a concern on this site with the number of posts in each category.

One last change that I would like to see is the introduction of paging. Right now the site lists all the posts of a particular category or month on one page, which I think makes it a little more difficult to read. Having pages broken down with a smaller number of posts per page makes it easier to manage as a reader.

Final Thoughts
All in all, I am really happy that I have found this site and have become an active participant in the Carnival of Debt Management.

With a very clean design, it is easy on the eyes and the quality of content seems to be improving as the site matures.

As I leave you with the request to invest some of your own time in reading through Debt Consolidation News, I felt this quote from Talking Dollars: The 100 Most Famous Quotes about Finance was appropriate:

Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” – Warren Buffett

Disclaimer
This post has been a paid review and contains my thoughts on the positive and negative aspects of the site or service in question. With the intent of providing information that is valuable to my readers, if you object to this post please let me know.