Allright, you have lots of debt and your creditors are hounding you. How do you handle it and get debt relief before you have a nervous breakdown? Use this simple guide for Dateline Paying.

Dateline paying is a simple method of paying oldest bills first, by using the due date. The dateline shows you how far back in time the dates of your past due bills go. Yes, credit debt should be treated exactly like any other past due bill. Here are a few simple steps to use this method that you can do.

1 - Make a list of credit card debt and past due bills. Use a report from your accounting program or a spreadsheet of some kind so you can sort them by due date. Be sure and put in a bill for more than the minimum payment for each credit card.

Decide how much you want to try to pay on the credit card bill over the next few weeks before the statement due date. For example, if your minimum payment is running at $400, put a bill in for $600.

2 - At the close of your business week, carve off 15% of the income to use to pay past due bills and debt. Use the remaining 85% to pay current bills to keep the front door open, the lights on and the phone lines ringing to make more money.

Be sure and use part of the remaining 85% to promote your products and services so customers keep buying, and set a bit aside as an emergency fund so you have a cushion to fall back on.

3 - Utilize the 15% to pay the debt by dateline - oldest bills first. Always use a portion of the cash to pay credit debt and part to pay suppliers.

4 - Pay something towards credit card debt each week by paying on-line.

Why? Because it stops the daily interest compounding on the amount that you paid. This saves you many dollars in interest charges over time. It also saves you from getting hit with late charges for making late payments. Additionally, it eliminates the scrambling to come up with a big chunk of cash to pay the credit debt in the week the payment is actually due.

5 - Pay suppliers' past due bills - oldest bill first. The only exception is a supplier who refuses to ship more product that you need to produce more income, or one who is threatening legal action. Those are dangerous situations that must be handled immediately.

6 - Work out how to increase your income in order to have an increasing amount of money to use to work this strategy of dateline paying.

Methodically working at paying both ends of the dateline, 15% to past due bills and 85% to current operating expenses, gradually moves the dateline forward to present time until you are current on your bills and out of debt.

You can easily see this strategy of dateline paying working for you by making a graph of the total amount of your debt and plot the figure each week so you can see the amount of debt coming down. It helps you confront the debt you created, it acknowledges the effort you are putting into getting the situation handled for good.

Sandra Simmons, President of Money Management Solutions has years of experience helping business owners and individuals manage their money to achieve financial freedom. Claim your FREE REPORT "7 Fatal Money Management Mistakes Business Owners Make"