Bankruptcy is a situation that I would recommend in a few rare occasions, because it’s such a traumatic, emotional, and gut-wrenching experience. It’s almost always a better option to work and fight through your debt, unless it’s an extremely rare situation where so much debt is owed that there’s no way one could ever pay it off, such as a high six figures of debt and very low income. Quite often you can get out of debt by negotiating with your creditors. Debt Consolidation News recently offered some great tips about negotiating with one’s creditors to avoid bankruptcy.

Here are some of the tips that they had to offer:

First, you’ll need to get some extra money so that you can settle with your creditors. You can do this by cashing out savings and investments, doing a monthly budget, and selling some extra possessions. They won’t just lower your debt because you ask them to, you have to be able to settle the debt wholly when you make the settlement.

They also suggest that you try to get a lower interest rate from your credit cards, which is always a good idea. If they won’t give you one, surf the balance over to another credit card. For other debts that you are behind on, they suggest that you call up your creditors and offer them what you can. If they’re unreasonable, just forget about them and try the next creditor on the list.

They do a great job on stressing the fact that you should always get such an agreement in writing before sending any money. Another good piece of advice to offer along with this is to never give post-dated checks or electronic access to your checking account. They’ll clean your account out if you do that.

DCN also does a good job explaining when your creditors are most likely to settle with you, and when they are likely to not settle with you. In addition, you’ll find out why they believe that bankruptcy is not a viable solution. You can read the full article here.

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