{"id":548,"date":"2017-01-25T14:49:46","date_gmt":"2017-01-25T14:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/?page_id=548"},"modified":"2025-12-23T15:10:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T15:10:39","slug":"debt-action-plan","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Debt action plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you are having money problems, you may be tempted to ignore them and hope they will go away. If you find you are always running out of money, missing loan repayments or relying on credit to pay for your day-to-day spending, tackle your situation as soon as possible, before you fall into more serious debt.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Remember that getting into debt and missing repayments can affect your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/loans\/your-credit-history\/\">credit history<\/a>\u00a0and make it difficult to get loans in the future. You can also be taken to court for defaulting on loan repayments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>Follow our step-by-step debt action plan to deal with your debts<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"#step1\">Step 1: Make a list of all your current debts<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"#step2\">Step 2: Make a new budget\/check your entitlements<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"#step3\">Step 3: Contact your lenders to discuss your options<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"#serious\">Where can you go if you have serious debt problems?<\/a><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"step1\">Step 1: Make a list of all your current debts<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>List your debts in order of priority, starting with your mortgage or rent,\u00a0utility bills and any ongoing medical costs you have.\u00a0You need to pay these first because you could be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/mortgage-arrears\/\">at risk of losing your home<\/a>, being evicted,\u00a0having your gas or electricity disconnected, or becoming ill.<\/li>\n<li>Then look at your other debts\u00a0such as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/credit-card-debt\/\">credit card debt<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/loans\/overdrafts\/\">overdrafts<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/loans\/applying-for-a-loan\/\">personal loans<\/a>. List your debts in order of the highest <span class='tooltipsall tooltip_post_id_custom_baff92a79f5b4e09d015362eae1f9b31 classtoolTipsCustomShortCode' style='border-bottom:2px dotted #888;'>annual percentage rate (APR)<\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\">jQuery(\"document\").ready(function(){ toolTips('.tooltip_post_id_custom_baff92a79f5b4e09d015362eae1f9b31','The APR is the annual rate of interest you will be charged on a loan\\. It takes account of all the costs involved over the term of the loan, such as any set\\-up charges and the interest rate\\. You can use the APR to compare different loans, as long as you compare them over the same term, for example 3\\-year loans\\.'); });<\/script>. The highest APR loans should be paid after your mortgage or rent, utility bills and medical costs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 id=\"step2\">Step 2: Make a new budget\/check your entitlements<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Work out how much you can afford to repay each week or month and learn how to spread your money to get more from it. Read our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/budgeting\/managing-your-money\/\">money makeover and budget planning<\/a> section\u00a0to help you.<\/li>\n<li>Make sure you are claiming all that you are entitled to. Depending on your income, circumstances and mortgage, you may be eligible for mortgage interest supplement, mortgage interest tax relief, other occupation related tax relief and more. The following sites are good starting points: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.revenue.ie\/en\/home.aspx\">Revenue<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/services.mywelfare.ie\/\">Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizensinformation.ie\/en\/\">Citizens Information<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 id=\"step3\">Step 3: Contact your lenders to discuss your options<\/h3>\n<p>If you are worried about your\u00a0loan repayments, contact your lender as soon as you can to explain your situation. Have all of your facts and figures to hand &#8211; including your list of debts, interest rates and\u00a0how much you still owe on each.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Outline to your lenders how much you can afford to repay each week or month using your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/budgeting\/managing-your-money\/\">budget<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Discuss options your lender may allow including: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/consolidating-debts\/\">debt consolidation<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/mortgages\/changing-your-mortgage\/payment-breaks\/\">payment breaks<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/mortgages\/changing-your-mortgage\/extending-the-term\/\">extending the term of your loan<\/a>.\u00a0This will make your loan more expensive in the long term, but it will make things more manageable for you in the short term. Read up on the options, then contact your lender immediately.<\/li>\n<li>If you have a car bought under a hire purchase agreement, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/problems-making-car-repayments\/\">find out all your options<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"serious\">Where can you go if you have serious debt problems?<\/h2>\n<p>The most important thing to remember is that there is help available to you.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mabs.ie\/en\/\">Money Advice and Budgeting Service<\/a> (MABS) is funded by the Citizens Information Board and is a free, confidential and independent service for people in debt or in danger of getting into debt. MABS can help people to draw up realistic budgets and help them in liaising with their banks and building societies on their debt in order to come to a workable solution. You can telephone the MABS helpline on 0818 07 2000.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.ie\/en\/insolvency-service-of-ireland\/\">Insolvency Service of Ireland<\/a> (ISI) is an independent Government body. The aim of ISI is to help sort out personal debt problems and restore people from insolvency to solvency in a fair, transparent and equitable way. Their website, <a href=\"https:\/\/backontrack.ie\/\">www.backontrack.ie<\/a>, has information to help you get back on track financially, including information on qualified financial advisors who can help protect you from your creditors as well as tailored information for your personal situation. You can telephone the ISI helpline on 01 764 4200.<\/p>\n<p>There are other organisations that can offer you support if you are in emotional distress, including the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.samaritans.org\/ireland\/?currency=EUR\">Samaritans<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you are having money problems, you may be tempted to ignore them and hope they will go away. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":2084,"parent":546,"menu_order":48,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[21,8],"class_list":["post-548","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-debt","tag-money"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\r\n<title>Debt action plan - CCPC<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Having issues with debt? Follow our step-by-step debt action plan to deal with your debts and find out about serious debt issues.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Debt action plan - CCPC\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Having issues with debt? Follow our step-by-step debt action plan to deal with your debts and find out about serious debt issues.\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CCPC Consumers\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-23T15:10:39+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/04\/CCPC-primary-logo.png\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"174\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"146\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/\",\"name\":\"Debt action plan - CCPC\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/04\/CCPC-primary-logo.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-25T14:49:46+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-23T15:10:39+00:00\",\"description\":\"Having issues with debt? Follow our step-by-step debt action plan to deal with your debts and find out about serious debt issues.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/04\/CCPC-primary-logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/04\/CCPC-primary-logo.png\",\"width\":174,\"height\":146,\"caption\":\"ccpc logo\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Money Hub\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Debt\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":4,\"name\":\"Debt action plan\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/\",\"name\":\"CCPC Consumers\",\"description\":\"The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"}]}<\/script>\r\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Debt action plan - CCPC","description":"Having issues with debt? Follow our step-by-step debt action plan to deal with your debts and find out about serious debt issues.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Debt action plan - CCPC","og_description":"Having issues with debt? Follow our step-by-step debt action plan to deal with your debts and find out about serious debt issues.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/","og_site_name":"CCPC Consumers","article_modified_time":"2025-12-23T15:10:39+00:00","og_image":[{"width":174,"height":146,"url":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/04\/CCPC-primary-logo.png","type":"image\/png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Estimated reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/","url":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/","name":"Debt action plan - CCPC","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/04\/CCPC-primary-logo.png","datePublished":"2017-01-25T14:49:46+00:00","dateModified":"2025-12-23T15:10:39+00:00","description":"Having issues with debt? Follow our step-by-step debt action plan to deal with your debts and find out about serious debt issues.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/04\/CCPC-primary-logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/04\/CCPC-primary-logo.png","width":174,"height":146,"caption":"ccpc logo"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/debt-action-plan\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Money Hub","item":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Debt","item":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/money\/debt\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Debt action plan"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/","name":"CCPC Consumers","description":"The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23882,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/548\/revisions\/23882"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccpc.ie\/consumers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}