I’ve just been asked by the nice people at DebtCC to do an interview about The DebtFree Playbook. They also asked me to review their community site on this blog. Well, I confess that when they first asked me to do it, I had no idea what their site was about. A community about debt? Hhmm. Isn’t that what we’re building here? They did say that I could be completely open and say what I really thought, positive or negative. Under those circumstances, I was delighted to agree to it.

So, I went over, poked around and cast a critical eye around their whole site. I am broadly against consolidating loans. A wise man once said (in this case my older brother) never swap (or trade for our US friends) short term credit for long term debt. At the moment, in the UK there are dozens of ads on TV for consolidation loans. “Transfer all your debts into just one low, manageable monthly payment” and the small print at the bottom says for 180 months. 180 Months! that translates to 15 years! That’s as long as some mortgages, just to pay off a bit of irresponsible spending. With that in mind, it was a very critical eye I took over to their site.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. Very. They offer people a range of choices way beyond consolidation loans, give great advice for people who want to go it alone and generally offer something for everyone. I was particularly impressed by the letter templates. One for every occasion. I was thinking about writing some for our members, but decided instead to refer people to theirs.

Why would I refer customers and members to the competition? I don’t really believe in competition, I believe in helping people get out of debt and I’ll collaborate with anyone who’s doing a good job. Besides, there is something we can offer that they just don’t and our members can tell them about it.

When people consolidate their debts into a lower payment they need to really understand themselves and their own motivation. Why did they get into debt in the first place? What are their underlying beliefs about money and how do they drive spending behaviour? If they don’t get to grips with that, it’ll be a short step to ‘one low payment means more disposable income’ and then one more short step to more debt. And that’s where The DebtFree Playbook comes in.