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When people are trying to lose weight, they often turn to expensive meal plans, diet pills, and new fad diets to try to get healthy. In 95% of cases (including my own), it just makes sense to cut the calories and work out more. There’s no magic solution to losing weight. Getting rid of major money and debt problems is very similar to losing weight. There are a lot of financial plans out there, but most of them are garbage. There’s a few quality programs here and there, but most of these debt reduction plans you see aren’t worth it. Here’s how you identify a bad financial plan.

If you do a Google search or have ever listened to any sort of talk radio, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. These companies offer all sorts of wild promises that they’ll show you how to avoid bankruptcy, get out of debt in just a couple of years, improve your credit score, avoid harassing credits, and the like. Of course they have no idea what your financial situation is, have no idea what you make or how much debt you have, but that doesn’t stop them from offering you wild promises.

Another major red flag in debt reduction and other financial programs is when they offer very little information about what they will teach you how to do. Donald Trump’s Wealth Builders Blueprint System is a great example of this. The advertisements say they’ll teach you how to be rich and show you how to accumulate wealth, but there are absolutely no details given at all. If you have to pay a fee just to hear what the basic principals of the financial plan is, you should under no circumstances sign up for the product. If you did sign up for one of these products, you’d probably figure out that there’s really nothing there. Dave Ramsey offers a great financial plan, and he offers his teachings free on his website. If a financial plan is really good, it’ll stand the test of public opinion.

Finally, if a debt reduction or other financial plan insists on a rather steep up-front fee (more than $100 or so), chances are it’s not worth your while. The companies that insist on a rather high fee know that’s probably the only money they’re going to get out of you, because their plan isn’t that great. If you’re in thousands of dollars of debt, you don’t need to be forking over hundreds of dollars for some magic new financial plan anyway. Spending all that money is what got you in trouble in the first place.

If you’re looking for a high quality financial planner, consider checking out non-profit organizations such as Lutheran Social Services, or if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, check out DaveRamsey.com.